


A Thread of Light

by Ben_Solos_Writing_Avenger_203



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Angst and Romance, Ben Solo Deserved Better, Ben Solo Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Dyad (Star Wars), Kylo Ren Redemption, POV Ben Solo, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), POV Rose Tico, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Protective Ben Solo, Protective Kylo Ren, Redeemed Ben Solo, Reylo - Freeform, Slow Burn, Slow Burn Rey/Kylo Ren, Soft Ben Solo, Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker - Freeform, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Fix-It, TROS Fix IT, TROS Rewrite, World Between Worlds, death but it's not permanent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:27:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22118632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ben_Solos_Writing_Avenger_203/pseuds/Ben_Solos_Writing_Avenger_203
Summary: So, this is my alternative version of TROS. It starts 3 months after The Last Jedi, and it's a Reylo-slowburn, but all the other characters will be there too, of course!I'd describe it as epic, angsty, romantic and funny in parts :)The story will be updated on a regular basis (every 5 to 7 days, mostly on weekends).May the Force be with You! :)
Relationships: Finn/Rose Tico, Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 40
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE**

It was a rainy night. Not the soft summer rain that gently tapped against the windowpanes, but the kind of torrential rain that often came hand in hand with hail and thunder. 

Palpatine had chosen the right kind of night to do this, he thought to himself. It didn’t take long. He knew where the quarters of his master were located; he knew that his master’s droid would be turned off for the night.

Plagueis had become a little careless over the last decades – if you had found a way to manipulate the Force to give you eternal life, that kind of thing was bound to happen.

Well, Darth Plagueis the Wise had found a way to avoid _natural_ death. When death finally arrived, it was brought to him by the sharp polished blade of a dagger, the blow carried out by his apprentice Darth Sidious. It was fast. He didn’t need to check for a pulse, there was no doubt Plagueis was dead. Palpatine cleaned the blade on the robes of the dead until it gleamed again in the dim light seeping in from the hall outside. He vanished out of the quarters. After biding his time for so long, the moment was now ripe to take matters into his own hands and get rid of the Jedi once and for all.

What Palpatine – drunk on the victory of killing his master – never noticed, was the little blue light blinking in the corner. 11-4D had not been in standby mode at all, but he had never been a droid programmed to fight and save his master, should someone try and murder him. No, BD11-4 was programmed to restore his master _after_ he’d been murdered. Darth Plagueis had been called the Wise, and he’d made certain to take some wise precautions.

It had been 40 standard years. Nobody had wasted a second glance on the droid waiting in the corner of the room. The blue light had blinked on, but with the years the shining silver of the droid’s body had become a dull grey, dust settling on its head and shoulders.

40 years. His master’s pupil had accomplished what had begun the night of the murderer, had succeeded to build his own empire, destroyed the order of the Jedi and had reigned as a tyrant. But now, history had repeated itself. Darth Sidious had been killed by his own pupil. The second Palpatine’s body had fallen into the abyss, 11-4D’s 40-year-old slumber ended.

With an agitated beep, the humanoid form of the droid drew out of the shadows of his corner. The blue light on his chest never stopped blinking – it seemed rather cheerful – and made his way to his master’s rotten body lying on the bed, the bones had turned yellow over the years and a sheet of dust had covered them like a blanket.

The route to Korriban had been the first thing Plagueis had programmed to his droid. When the 11-4D made his master’s ship jump out of hyperspace directly in front of the planet, he let his visual sensors wander to the co-pilot’s seat where he’d settled his master’s bones, the skull dangling loosely from the neck.

11-4D would have to be careful not to lose his master’s head while carrying him, once he’d landed.

No living soul had set foot on Korriban for several hundred years: the red desert planet had been a place that belonged solely to the dead ever since the early wars had destroyed it.

Pushing through the atmosphere and navigating towards the Valley of Dark Lords, 11-4D computed a list with neat and orderly steps at what he would have to do once he reached the valley.

Had he been human, he would have felt the cold, sharp terror every living being of flesh and blood feels entering this valley, the final resting-place of generations of Sith Lords. Some of them had left their own legacy of terror, others had vanished in the abyss of history just as their bodies had withered away into the blood-red sands covering Korriban.

11-4D landed the ship – his processor told him the probability he’d need it anytime soon was very slim – took the corpse of Plagueis and set out into the valley.

It was a cemetery, but Darth Plagueis had not chosen this place as his final resting-place. He chose it as the place of his own resurrection.

*******

**[Aboard the _Finalizer_ ]**

„Supreme Leader, you need to authorise a few other orders. “ 

Kylo rolled his eyes. It had been three months since the battle of Crait, three months since he had become Supreme Leader of the First Order. Hux had been constantly annoying him with bureaucracy and politics since then.

Without a glance at the general, he used the force to pull the paperwork towards him, knowing that Hux had been squeamish whenever he used the Force. Maybe because he had once used it to choke him. Something he would gladly do again given the right excuse.

Kylo’s smug smile vanished with a glance at what exactly needed to be authorised. It was a bounty of 2 Million credits on Rey’s head. What did he expect? He had told Hux that it had been her. He knew that the First Order wouldn’t let the murderer of their former leader just get away with it.

“Authorised. Send out bounty hunters today”, he said, turning his back on Hux to leave the conference room, feeling the glare of the other man on his back. 

****

“We need to get rid of him.” Hux turned and found himself face to face with general Bright, an old friend of his late father’s. He had hardly ever spoken with him, but Bright’s cold steel blue eyes made him feel uncomfortable.

“Pardon, General?”

“Come on, Hux. I know you’re thinking the same thing.” Hux didn’t miss the insult of not being called by his title.

“That man is going to destroy the First Order with his bad temper and worse decisions”, Hux grumbled as General Bright entered the conference Room Kylo had left only minutes before.

Bright flashed him a conspiratorial smile. “Then we better get rid of him, sooner or later.”

Bright was one of those men that could smile in your face while shooting you with a blaster. Of course, Hux saw himself as one of those men, too, so he knew who _not_ to trust. But it had been Bright to suggest… what exactly? Murder of the Supreme Leader? Did Bright expect an answer, or had it just been a joke? It was possible that Bright just wanted to trick him into saying something treacherous, just to get rid of him. The First Order had always been like a game of Sabacc. Hux was sure that he himself had mastered it.

“Seems like something very disloyal to say, General Bright.”

“Would you rather sit and wait until it’s too late?”

Hux raised an eyebrow. “What exactly do you suggest?”

Bright just shrugged. “We’re not the only ones in these ranks to find Ren… _inadequate_ as a leader. In due course, someone will act on that. That someone will likely be the new Supreme Leader. You don’t conceal your own resentment very well, General Hux.”

At that, Hux couldn’t restrain himself any longer. “And you’re suggesting what? Murder? Treason?”

“We don’t have to go this far. A little investigative action should do. Or are you naïve enough to believe Ren that this scavenger girl killed our Supreme leader, defeated Snoke’s guards and knocked out Ren, all by _herself_?”

“There has to be surveillance”, Hux admitted, “There always is. But the Supremacy was destroyed in the Holdo-Manoeuvre. But even if we were able to prove his treachery, there’s still a chance that the other Generals will remain under his command out of fear instead of turning against him.”

****

Kylo was back in his private quarters, sitting on the ground with his forehead against the cool glass of the windowpane, watching the glittering light of distant stars and the Stardestroyers floating in space, waiting for new orders. _His_ orders. He closed his eyes and tried to reach out through the Force, but the other side of the bond remained as silent as it had since that day three months ago, when she had slammed to door of the Falcon practically in his face. Maybe she had succeeded by now in shutting the Bond for good. It may be for best, but the thought didn’t relieve him. Nothing did, these days.

He was sure that Hux and maybe a few of the other Generals were just waiting for him to make a mistake and get rid of him, but what troubled him most were the never-ending nightmares. He felt like he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep for such a long time. At first, the image of his father’s last sad and _forgiving_ glance as his body dropped into the abyss on Starkiller Base had replayed in his mind, over and over and over. He’d done it to be free of his past, but he never was and probably would never be. Then the Bond had somehow…started? Appeared? Had awakened? He had no idea. So now it was Rey who was occupying his nightmares, leaving him behind, reaching for his family’s lightsaber to kill him. He knew she had wanted to kill him in the forest on Starkiller. He had offered her the galaxy, the throne, a life by his side, everything; but she had refused, she didn’t want him. It was never him she had come for, it had always been the resistance, her _precious_ friends. He clenched his fists. Never him.

_“You really have no clue about women, do you, kiddo?”_

Kylo spun around to face the room, his heart hammering in his chest. The quarters were empty. With a jolt, he sprung to his feet, igniting the lightsaber in the motion. Red light filled the black-and-white chambers, flickering on the walls red like a campfire, the crackling sound echoing in the silence. Shaking like a leaf – more of tension than real fear- he slowly made his way toward the middle of the room, listening, the saber still ignited an emanating a searing heat. But it seemed the voice was gone. He’d recognised it instantly; but its owner had died and either way Force Ghosts could be seen and heard, they weren’t just bodiless voices in one’s head. Or so he had thought. No, the only possible explanation was the ongoing sleep deprivation and stress he suffered. He should take the hint and have a nap.

A knock sounded muffled through the steel doors of his quarters and he jerked towards it, lightsaber still ready and a haunted expression crossed his features. But as the door opened with a quiet swoosh, he found himself in front of a trembling lieutenant Mitaka, clutching a comm-pad in his hands and looking as if he was about to burst out crying.

Kylo switched off the Lightsaber. Mitaka still stood in the door, shaking and staring.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”, Kylo sighed, trying to restrain his annoyance and exhaustion. He failed utterly at it.

“Supreme Leader, some of our supporters sighted the Resistance. Well, not exactly the Resistance but maybe one of their- “

“ _Now_ , Lieutenant.”

Mitaka gulped. “The Millennium Falcon has been sighted. In the Commenor-System.”

Kylo’s heart leaped. The Falcon. He had come to hate this ship with a passion.

“Prepare my ship, alert Hux and Bright. I want the whole fleet ready to launch. _Now_.”

Mitaka scrambled away and Kylo turned again to the depth of space outside his window, wondering if Rey was aboard the Falcon. What if she was? He had wanted her by his side, not as his prisoner but of her own free will. For the time being, he just needed to get out and _do_ something.

****

**[In the caves of Commenor]**

Rose’s injuries had healed for the most part – the physical ones. Broken bones and internal bleeding could be mended easier than a broken heart. In the time right after Paige’s death, there had been no time to grieve and Rose’s new task – deactivating the First Order’s new tracking device to enable the Resistance to flee – had deferred the realisation that Paige was gone. Now, spending her days in bed in the surgical wing of the Resistance’s new quarters, this realisation had hit her like a punch in the gut. The intensity of her grief for her sister was like nothing Rose had ever felt before; even when her parents had been taken all those years ago. Paige had always been there, had always been the strong sister. But now, she’d never come back and Rose was drowning in grief.

Where Paige had been tough, Rose was soft. Where Paige had always instantly tackled the problem, Rose was more careful; where Paige had been the loud and happy sister, Rose was quiet and thoughtful. Paige was the sun and Rose the moon circling her, glowing in her sister’s warm light. But without this sun, the night was cold and dark because the moon couldn’t shine without the sun’s light reflecting on it. 

There were less than 200 people left after the Battle of Crait, and Rose couldn’t do anything – she had never trained to be a warrior. All she could do was repair machines, which didn’t do any good now that there were only a handful of spaceships left.

The answer is to never destroy what you hate and always save what you love, her mother had told the two sisters one night while tugging them into their makeshift-beds on the ground of their little hut. It was only a few days before the First Order had taken her away and Rose followed Paige to join the Resistance.

A sad smile crossed Rose’s face as she made her decision. She didn’t _have_ to be a warrior to make things right. In all her years repairing spaceship she had learned that it was the smallest bits and pieces that were most important to make those ships fly.

Rose gently tapped Finn’s hand who was sitting in a chair beside her cot. He’d been sitting there since she woke up from coma and Rose suspected he’d sat there even as she was still out. Now, his eyes opened, and he rose in alarm.

“What is it? What happened?”

“I want to get up. I had an idea and I need to talk to General Organa about it before she departs again in a few days. I will go, with or without you”, she added seeing the concerned expression crossing his features.

Finn opened his mouth and shut it again. If he had learned anything about women now, it was that you could never win an argument with them. He had accepted that as a fact when he befriended Rey.

“Okay, then at least tell me your plan”, he gave in.

****

“You _what_?”, Leia asked incredulously. “Listen, Rose, this idea of yours is beautiful but you can’t go now. We need you to be _here_. It’s hard enough to rebuild a rebellion when there are so few rebels left. You’re one of our best mechanics!”

“I’m one of five remaining mechanics, General Organa. Please – just think about it.”

Leia let out a heavy sigh and slowly sat down in one of the seats in front of a small table, rubbing her forehead in deep contemplation. The last three months had felt like decades and she felt the strain of fighting for a seemingly lost cause. First her son, then Han and now Luke. She just kept losing the ones she loved to darkness or death.

“Paige was the warrior. I don’t want to sit here and just wait for something to happen. I want to do something, something other than repairing ships that won’t fly anytime soon.”

Leia gave another exasperated sigh, then thought _Get yourself together, you sound like an old woman_.

“Your plan is to go on a fool’s errand.”

Rose threw Finn a despairing glance, silently begging him to support her cause.

“With all due respect”, he interfered, earning him another crossed glance from Leia, “I was once one of those children Rose wants to free. Just imagine what would happen if we succeeded to free just one of those First-Order Training Academies.”

“We wouldn’t gain more fighters”, Rose admitted, “but the whole Galaxy will know what the Resistance did, that we’re not done yet and that we’re still fighting for all those who aren’t able to fight for themselves! That’s… that’s the spark of hope the Galaxy needs!” Rose had begun to gesture euphorically at Finn.

“General, I deserted. Just think how many other Stormtroopers would do the same if they only had the slightest chance to make it out alive and fight for their freedom. Freeing the children from those First-Order-Academies, from their captors, could be the start.”

Leia nodded, deep in her own thoughts. “I see your point. But do you even reckon that you could just as easily fail? If you fail, the First Order will use it against the Resistance, to destroy what’s left of the faith people have in the Resistance. And if you fail, you’ll most likely die, and I can’t let that happen. We’ve lost enough of our heroes.”

Rose took a step forward and knelt right in front of Leia. “Please, General. Those children were abducted from their families, just like Finn was. Those lost generations are the future of our Galaxy! Even if we fail, people will know that we’re still fighting for this future.”

Leia closed her eyes. “I know exactly how this will go on from this point on. I’ll give you the official order to stay here, on Commenor, instead of throwing yourselves headfirst into a suicide-mission. A few hours later, I’ll have a bad feeling about this whole thing and then I’ll find out that you just ran away on exactly that same suicide-mission I strictly forbade you to go on.”

Finn and Rose exchanged a guilty glance, confirming Leia’s assumptions.

“So, I’ll give you permission. However, there are some terms you need to comply with. First, I want to know exactly where you are and what the plan is; every single second of this mission. Second, I can’t keep you from going but I won’t order anyone to accompany you – unless, of course, they volunteer. Third… please, stay alive.”

****

**[In the Caves of Commenor]**

“It doesn’t WORK”, Rey complained, fighting the urge to fling the offending book into the corner of her room.

“Maybe it doesn’t work because of your rather negative attitude, Miss Rey”, C3PO chimed in happily, offering his advice. Regardless if she wanted it or not. Rey closed her eyes, which were stinging after hours and hours of deciphering glyphs in the dusty Jedi textbook.

“Anger leads the way to the dark side”, C3PO reminded her delightfully.

“Would you _please_ be quiet, just for a second?” Rey started massaging her forehead and let out a deep, frustrated groan. She pushed the book she’d been trying to understand towards C3PO, who caught it in his gleaming gold hands. On the rare occasions R2D2 joined their Jedi-Text-sessions, he always cheered Rey up with his commentaries on Threepio and his never-ending inventory of creative curses.

But Threepio just carried on. “Master Anakin had joined the Dark Side because of his rage.”

“Yeah. You were his droid first, so I’m coming to understand him a little better”, Rey replied dryly.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t like Threepio. It was just that you could only spend a limited amount of time with him without snapping, and her limits had been reached weeks ago, spending hours and hours with him every day, pouring over the Jedi Texts she’d stolen from Ach To. Well, borrowed. She had intended to bring them back one day.

As it had turned out, they were utterly useless. And utterly confusing, since those texts weren’t written by one or two persons but whole generations of first Jedi, some of them heavily disagreeing on the most basic matters. With each passing day, the task of learning from them so that she could rebuild the Order of the Jedi, seemed more and more impossible. Maybe Luke had been right as he’d told her the Jedi would have to end. But what then? Who would stop the First Order? Luke was gone, the Resistance nearly completely eradicated.

When she told Leia of her concerns, the General had taken her hand with a reassuring smile. “It’s good to seek advice of others through those books. But they are all gone now, Rey. You are what’s left of the Jedi, and you’ll learn that sometimes you have to trust what your heart tells you, instead of an ancient Jedi telling you his thoughts through a book.”

But Rey hadn’t told Leia even half of what happened since she’d departed for Ach To, she hadn’t even told the General about the bond connecting her to her son, and she would stick to that decision. _No one_ could ever know about the Force Bond. Telling Leia wouldn’t change anything, anyway.

“Threepio?”

“Yes?”

Rey hesitated a few seconds, letting the thought take form in her head. “Do you know what happened before? Before there was a Jedi Order? I mean, it wasn’t just formed right from the start, was it?”

“Oh. I do not know the answer to that question, Miss Rey. But there is a good chance to find it in one of those books.”

Rey nodded, pulled another of the texts on her lap and began to read.

****

That night, when she woke from her usual nightmares, Rey was not alone. It took her a few seconds until the last wisps of sleep clouding her mind had vanished and she finally noticed his dark silhouette.

It was harder to block him out when she slept. The Bond had always opened in their most vulnerable moments.

For a few moments, they just stared at each other in silence.

His features were concealed in the darkness, but as she took in his towering form, she noticed he was fully clothed, this time. Which brought back the memories of that one time when the Bond had sprung to life and he had been shirtless, which sent her head spinning again. Rey pulled the blanket a little higher, suddenly aware that she was sweat-drenched, and her nightshift only consisted of a thin layer of cloth around her upper body. She would have to tackle this problem first thing the next morning. For now, her blanket would have to suffice.

Then, he finally stepped forward into the thin sliver of silvery light streaming into her room through the small gaps on the sides of her door, and Rey could finally see his face.

He was much paler – she hadn’t thought that possible – and the dark circles under his eyes told her of his own sleepless nights. Rey couldn’t help but wonder if he, too, was plagued by nightmares. The expression in his dark eyes was haunted and weary at the same time.

“Did it finally strain you to block the Bond?”, he spat. If she didn’t know better, she would have mistaken the emotion in his voice for hurt.

“Supreme Leader Ren”, she hissed in reply, “did it feel satisfying to put that bounty on my head? What will you do to me if you catch me? Execute me for a murder I didn’t commit?”

“It was you who tried to attack me with my own family lightsaber, it was you who left me unconscious on a burning ship and you who slammed a door in my face after I offered you the whole Galaxy.” His reply was eerily calm, this time. “And yet you’re claiming the moral high ground. Congratulations, you finally are a real Jedi.”

Rey flinched. She _had_ tried to attack him, and she _had_ left him on a burning ship. But what else could she have done – take him with her after he had tried to murder her riends _again_? She bit her lip.

“I never wanted the Galaxy”, she replied quietly.

“No”, he agreed. “All _you_ ever wanted was to save your _friends_.” He spat out the last word as if it had personally offended him.

“Is that really what you think? Don’t you realize you’re one of the people I wanted to save? I wanted to help you free yourself of Snoke’s grip and all the darkness you were pushed into, because I believed in the light I saw in you when our hands touched. I came for _you_. Turned out Luke was right when he warned me. _You_ were the one who tried to shoot my ship and swear to destroy me. Maybe I should have finished you off when I had the chance instead of just leaving.”

She never meant to say those last words – she had never even thought them, for a start – but she was hurt, and she wanted to lash out and hurt him in return.

He took a step back. The silver light shimmering through the door gave the scar in his face a ghostly glow. His face remained impassive at her words.

“Maybe you should have.” A shiver ran up her spine. “You wouldn’t have been the first Jedi to try and kill someone defenceless. Luke really taught you a lot more than I thought.”

She just glared at him. The Bond was closing again, and he slowly vanished, his dark eyes never leaving hers until she was alone in her room again. Only then, she allowed herself to say what she had really wanted to tell him. She whispered it into the darkness of her room, instead.

“I wanted to take your hand, Ben. I still do.”


	2. Chapter 2

**[In the caves of Commenor]**

In those past three months since Crait, Rey had found a way to block her connection to Kylo most of the time – not cut it, she didn’t think it was even possible to cut it; it was more like pulling a curtain shut. He was still at the other end, but rarely saw him and until last night, neither of them had said a word. She was still looking for a way to block out the flashes of his emotions she could feel through the bond multiple times a day. It was better this way, though it didn’t _feel_ better.

She’d come to believe that Snoke had lied about his connecting them through the Force. If he’d told them the truth, the connection would’ve been severed the moment of his death, which clearly wasn’t the case.

But she really needed to find a way to block him out even in her sleep. The Bond opening up the night before… that couldn’t happen again. It hurt too much and – worse – someone could’ve heard her talking. She didn’t now how she could explain why she was hissing at a wall in the middle of the night.

A knock sounded on door to her chambers, tearing her out of her thoughts. Finn opened the door but seemed hesitant to enter the room, standing undecidedly in the doorway.

“I came to say goodbye.” He sounded guilty.

“Leia and I won’t leave until tomorrow morning.”

Not one soul had come to help the Resistance in their darkest hour on Crait. Leia’s call for help had remained unheard, even now. But the resolute woman had never been one to give up, so she’d decided to travel the Galaxy and seek out possible allies herself. If help wouldn’t come on its own, Leia would take matters into her own hands and drag it to Commenor by the sleeve. Since the First Order had put a bounty on Rey’s head, Leia had insisted on Rey accompanying her on her voyages through the Galaxy. It was much harder to get caught if you didn’t stay in one place for long.

When Finn didn’t answer, Rey stood up from her cot and made her way towards him.

“What is it? Are you… are you going anywhere?”

Rey still found it hard sometimes to communicate, a last remainder of her lonely days as a scavenger.

He rubbed his forehead, a thing Rey had come to know as a nervous tick, then he answered: “Rose had an idea, to travel to one or two of the academies where the First Order trains their new Stormtroopers. You know, the children they abducted from their families. Rose wants to free them and since you’re leaving tomorrow, too, and I couldn’t just let her go alone – I mean, she can take care of herself but with her injuries only lately healed… I’ll come with her. Chewie will accompany us, too.”

He stopped rambling and looked at her expectantly, as if waiting for her permission.

“Finn, that’s a wonderful idea. You don’t need to apologize for that.”

“It still feels like leaving you behind. I won’t do that, you know. You’re my best friend. I won’t ever leave you behind because I met new friends.”

Suddenly, there was a lump in her throat, tears building in her eyes. Rey made a step forward and pulled him into a hug. “I know that, Finn. You should go with her.” A sad smile crossed her face as she let go of him. Tears were glistening in his eyes as he nodded.

“We’ll see each other again. May the Force be with you.”

“Of course, we will.”

With that, he turned and walked away, leaving Rey behind in her room. A wave of sadness washed over her, reminding her of the first time she had seen Rose, laying unconsciously on a cot in the Falcon, minutes before they’d departed from Crait. Finn had tucked Rose gently into a blanket, murmuring something to himself. All she had felt that moment was grief, because the way Finn had taken care of Rose had led Rey to think of Ben, of how he’d touched her hand in the firelight on Ach To, telling her she wasn’t alone. But the vision of him standing beside her had only been that: a dream too good to come true.

But no matter her own grief, her heart was full of happiness for Finn to have found someone like Rose. Even if she’d hardly spoken to Rose, she saw the other girl as a friend already. She’d nearly given her own life to save Finn. That alone would have made her Rey’s friend, but apart from that, it was almost impossible to not like Rose: she was calm and gentle, and it was obvious how much she cared. Rose carried a kind of strength that didn’t grow from anger and sadness – even if she had every right to be angry – but from kindness.

Rey stood up to go and see Chewie and Rose before their departure, trying not think about how it could be the last time they were all together.

***

Rey didn’t have to search for long; Rose had taken to checking the Falcon’s mechanism before the take-off while Chewie was busy clearing away the porg-nests the tiny birds had built on the seats and consoles inside the ship. While everyone else had grown fond of the ever cooing and screeching creatures, Rey still found them somewhat annoying.

As he noticed her standing in the doorway, he gave off a loud, happy howl and set down his broom to greet her.

“I know. I couldn’t let you go without saying goodbye”, she smiled. Rose had put down her tools, too, joining Chewie to greet her.

“Take care of yourself”, Rey told her pulling her into a tight embrace. “And you, too, Chewie. Be safe. Kick some ass.”

***

As soon as Leia had given them permission, Finn and Rose had asked Chewie for his permission to take the Falcon – they needed a ship big enough to take all the freed children with them when they succeeded (“ _If_ we succeed”, Finn had corrected her). Chewie had hesitated for a second, but seeing the desperation on Rose’s face, he’d given in rather quickly. He didn’t know Rose well, but he’d heard of the story how her sister had given her life for the Resistance’s course and thus remembered his own losses. Plus, he really badly wanted to take action and blow something up; he hadn’t done that for quite a while. Chewie’s only terms were, that _he_ was to pilot the Falcon, at all times.

As they walked back to their quarters to pack some stuff for the journey, Rose finally felt like herself again. She would carry on what Paige – fierce, strong, lovely Paige – had started by sacrificing her own life. Rose would save and repair, instead of hating and destroying.

The Trio – Rose, Finn and Chewie – made their launch out of the hangar only a few hours later and were currently navigating their way out of Commenor’s secret cave system, where the Resistance had set their new base. Rose threw a last glance at the rolling hills and green forests beneath. Commenor was a beautiful place. One of the porgs that had chosen the Falcon’s interior gave a shrill squeal and settled on Chewie’s head, who brushed the bird lazily away.

Chewie howled and started typing something into a monitor.

“Yeah. I know where all the Stormtrooper Academies are. I’ve been at one myself”, Finn repeated empathically.

It was the third time Chewie had asked if he was sure, and he was getting annoyed by the Wookie’s doubts in his memory. In addition, he hated to think back to those times, when he’d been part of the First Order himself. Though he couldn’t even remember the family he had been abducted from, thinking back to those days always brought a feeling of loss and shame. Telling himself that it had not been his fault did not lessen those emotions. 

Chewie grumbled his reply and finally fed Finn’s coordinates into the navigator.

“So, where do we go first?”, Rose interrupted the currently not so friendly bantering.

“Nur. A water moon in the Mustafar-System.”

She reached up to tighten her ponytail, just as Chewie uttered another howl and Finn muttered a curse under his breath. The Asteroid belt that had formed around Commenor a few weeks ago was the reason why the Resistance had finally chosen the planet near the Outer Rim as their new base and hiding place. The cave systems had once been the base of the Rebels and the belt formed a natural shield against the enemies’ huge fleet entering Commenor’s atmosphere. Crossing the asteroid belt with an X-Wing was difficult enough, with a freighter, it was worse. Once the Resistance really grew, the accessibility for larger ships and other freighters bringing more fighters and weapons would be a problem, since it was too dangerous to jump out of hyperspace directly in front of Commenor. The space between the planet and its surrounding belt of flying rocks was too slim.

“I mean, we knew it would be difficult”, Finn stated, thus breaking the silence that had settled over the small group.

“How did you do it last time?”, Rose wondered. She’d been unconscious when they’d first come to Commenor.

“Well, the few Rescue Shuttles were small and lucky. Poe and Rey were flying the Falcon and they are the best pilots we have, so – OW!” Finn’s last comment had earned him a smack on his head by the now very agitated Wookie.

Rose had to suppress a smile.

“Guys, you need to listen”, Poe’s voice shrilled out of the comm. He seemed concerned.

“What is it?”

“The First Order is here. On the other side of the asteroid belt, right in front of you.”

“The whole Fleet?” Rose felt panic rising in her belly. They didn’t stand a chance against a whole fleet.

“No, but a few Star Destroyers, nevertheless. And they just released their Tie Fighters.”

“How many?”, Finn pressed while Chewie had begun to adjust his pilot’s seat. The Wookie seemed to be getting ready for a fight.

This time, Poe’s answer sounded a little distorted, as if the comm-signal was deteriorating. Was the First Order interfering with their reception?

“About twenty. Guys, Kylo Ren is there, too. He’s leading him in his Tie Whisperer.”

“We can’t fight them”, Finn stated the obvious.

Rose felt a cold panic rush through her, but her mind stayed clear. “No, but we can make use of the asteroid belt.” She gave Chewie a reassuring nod. “I have a plan.”

***

**[In space above Commenor]**

It was a short jump to the Commenor-System. With its past in the Clone Wars, Commenor really was the perfect place for the Resistance to rebuild and lick their wounds. A shame that nobody in the First Order had entertained the thought earlier that it could be the hideout of the Resistance.

What Kylo didn’t have in mind when he started the jump into hyperspace in his TieWhisperer (he couldn’t help but notice that the names of his ships were getting more and more dramatic) was what awaited him and his fleet of Tie Fighters on the other end. Which was an asteroid belt. They had jumped right into the middle of it.

“Asteroids!”, called one of the pilots via comm; a statement Kylo deemed rather unnecessary.

“What do we do now, Supreme Leader?” It was the shrill voice of Hux this time.

“ _You_ do nothing, General”, Kylo growled back, “ _I_ will lead the Tie Fighters through to Commenor and you stay here with the rest of my fleet and await my orders. As planned.”

“Supreme Leader, the original plan went somewhat askew and we cannot risk to lose - “

“Thank you, General Hux, for that thoughtful advice. However, I will continue to ignore it”, Kylo interrupted him. On the other end of the line was suddenly indignant silence.

Kylo steered his ship forward, carefully avoiding the huge floating rocks in the way. They seemed to get faster with every minute they got deeper into the belt. Only seconds after this thought, a screeching sounded through one of the comms and he realized that one of the Tie Fighters behind him had been hit by an asteroid. The screams of the pilot stopped shortly afterwards.

Kylo could see the little red arrow marking the Falcon on his radar. They would not get away this time. If Rey was on board…

“I want this ship and I want the crew in one piece”, Kylo gave order to his pilots. He clenched his gloved hand around the drive and continued his way, more careful now. But it didn’t help: more and more Tie Fighters were struck and exploded in balls of fire and the unease of the quickly decimating remaining pilots grew.

“Supreme Leader, you need to stop this RIGHT NOW!” Hux was screaming this time. How dare he scream at the Supreme Leader?

“General Hux, I will NOT let this SHIP get away again!”, Kylo spat back via comm, the rage in his chest fuelled by the thought of letting the Falcon escape for the _third time_ in a row.

 _“You seem a little stressed, kid_.” The muffled voice came directly from beside his left ear and Kylo ducked away, scratching the surface of an asteroid, setting off several alarms in the cockpit. He pulled away just in time and looked frantically around the cockpit. He was alone. There was no Force Ghost. But this time he knew- he was _absolutely_ sure- that he had heard the voice. Luke’s voice, and to his bewilderment he was certain that there had been a smile in that voice.

Shaking off his shock, he continued shouting through the comm at Hux which rather sadly didn’t help to release his stress this time. Usually, it worked.

“I WANT THAT PIECE OF GARBAGE BLOWN OUT OF THE SKY BECAUSE WE ARE THE FIRST ORDER AND WE WON’T LET OUR ENEMIES JUST GET AWAY; DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!” Kylo’s voice still sounded a little shaken, which enraged him even more.

_“Now you’re just screaming like a banshee, boy.”_

“SHUT. UP!! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!”

Several miles away, General Hux switched a baffled glance with General Bright.

“M-Me?”, Hux finally asked, too surprised to be insulted by the show of disrespect through the Supreme Leader.

“NOT YOU, YOU SLOW-WITTED PORGFACE!!!!”, came Kylo’s yelled answer, which finally worked to annoy the dumbfounded red-haired General.

Hux’s mouth twitched in anger and he curled his hands into fists, hitting the off-button of the comm connecting them to the Supreme Leader.

“We get rid of him now”, he stated, earning a surprised look from General Bright.

“How do we do it?”

A grin twisted Hux’s features as he replied. “Supreme Leader Ren was hit by an asteroid and while he’s raging, his ship is losing fuel rather rapidly. He hasn’t noticed yet that the rock he scratched has destroyed the fuel tank and a part of his right wing. I say, we call back the remaining fleet and let him die on his own in the asteroid belt.”

Bright flashed him another one of his cold smiles and nodded.

“We need to rescue the fleet, after all. In such a situation, it’s possible and often inexorable to lose a few ships and pilots in the progress.”

With that, Bright gave order for all remaining pilots to immediately abort their mission and jump back. The Falcon had already vanished from their radars.

***

Hux had turned his comm off. He had dared to turn it off, while talking to his Supreme Leader.

“He’ll pay for this.”, Kylo grumbled and finally turned his attention to the row of shrill alarms and blinking red lights in front of him. “When I’m back, I’ll start his trial for treason and get finally rid of him.”

_“If you get back.”_

Before Kylo could muster a response for the voice, he noticed what the alarms were for. The right wing of his ship had been severely damaged, and a steady stream of fuel was leaking out of the tank. He’d let himself get distracted. He also noticed, that the fleet behind him had left.

They were plotting against him. Probably, Hux had planned to get rid of him the moment Kylo had declared himself the new Supreme Leader. But Kylo hadn’t noticed – because he was too preoccupied thinking about the girl and brooding over the fact that she hadn’t wanted to stay with him.

In the flaring red alarm-lights and shrilling sirens, all he could feel was… fear. If he wasn’t Supreme Leader anymore, what was he? He had nothing else left.

“Keep it together”, he snapped at himself, pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on the spark of rage suddenly re-igniting itself in his chest. He needed that spark of rage to channel the Force from the Dark Side and to get himself out of this damned asteroid belt. Jumping back into hyperspace was not possible; the damage the solid rock had left on his TieWhisperer was too grave. Kylo knew he had to reach Commenor, and fast, before the rest of the fuel had leaked out of the tank and left him stranded in this asteroid belt, locked up like a prisoner in his own spaceship with an already dwindling supply of oxygen. He needed to hurry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one contains a short Finn-and-Rose-sidestory (which you can skip if you only want to read the Reylo-parts), but mostly Rey and Kylo's POV, of course :)

**[In space above Commenor]**

Chewie gave another howl and Rose just caught herself on the back of Finn’s co-pilot chair as the Falcon jumped out of hyperspace with a jolt. They had successfully managed to get rid of Kylo Ren and the Tie Fighters, thanks to Rose’s quick thinking.

They had flown straight into the asteroid belt (either way, crossing the belt was the only way out of Commenor), just far enough to be on Kylo Ren’s radar. Then, they’d turned around, luring Kylo and the Tie Fighters deeper into the belt, towards a current of faster moving rocks, where Kylo Ren’s Tie Whisperer had been struck and Poe had told the trio via comm that the First Order had somehow vanished from all radars.

“We made it!”, Rose screeched in delight and let go of the poor porg she’d anxiously pressed to her chest during the manoeuvre, which made its way cooing and fluttering onto the safety of Chewie’s head.

There was not a scratch on the Falcon, thanks to the Wookie’s outstanding piloting skills (which really were outstanding) and the disc-shaped built-up of the Falcon. The bulky Tie Fighters could never hope to match the Falcon when it came to manoeuvrability in tight spaces.

***

**[Commenor]**

Of course, Kylo knew how to fix the damage on his ship. The problem was that he couldn’t do it from the inside and getting out in the middle of space was not an option. What he could do, however, was trying to hold the fuel inside the tank using the Force, thus stopping the leakage. He could only hope he had enough fuel left to make it down to Commenor.

***

It had worked. It had really worked. Kylo couldn’t believe it as he stumbled out of the TieWhisperer which had caught fire somewhere on the way to Commenor.

He scrambled a few feet away and sat down on the mossy ground, leaning his head against a trunk in a safe distance from the still burning spaceship. Now he just had to get to the nearest village, get a new ship and return to the First Order to punish Hux for his treason.

Kylo was tired as he stumbled through the forest, twigs and leaves catching in his midnight curls and scratching him through the fabric of his tunic.

“At least it’s not sand”, he murmured and tugged a few leaves out of his strands.

A quiet laugh sounded from behind. Kylo gripped the saber from his belt and ignited it while turning around in one swift motion. There was nobody there, but this time, Kylo knew that it really had been Luke.

 _“Do you still believe your old uncle to be a sleep disorder?”_ , the voice sounded again, louder this time.

“Scaring people awake in the middle of the night standing above them with an ignited lightsaber and a desire to murder them certainly comes close to it. What do you want?”

 _“What do_ you _want, Ben? What even was your plan? She didn’t want to stay with you, so you set out to kidnap her? How very romantic.”_

“Stop calling me this”, Kylo snarled, pushing away the memory of Rey calling him by his old name. She didn’t want to be with him. Luke’s comment stung but he forced himself to remain impassive.

“I’m not Ben anymore. I stopped being Ben when you tried to murder him.”

 _“I never tried to murder you. I contemplated it and I am deeply ashamed of what I’ve done.”_ Luke sounded sad now. It didn’t matter.

“You didn’t want my forgiveness on Crait, and I doubt you want it now. So, get out of my head and leave me alone.”

“ _You’re as stubborn as your mother, kid.”_

“I said LEAVE ME ALONE!”, he shouted, blindly hacking his lightsaber in the general direction the voice seemed to come from. He never got an answer. Luke’s voice had vanished as fast as it had appeared. His uncle really had kept to his promise to see him around. Though the air was warm, Kylo shivered. He didn’t have time to contemplate what he could do to stop his uncle from haunting him.

It was not a long walk to the next village. As he arrived, it was getting dark and the triplet moons of Commenor were glimmering through the canopy of the forest. The lush green landscape reminded him of home; the home where he grew up. Chandrila. He quickly pushed the thoughts aside and stopped at the edge of the woods to contemplate what to do next. His plan had involved storming into the next tavern and ordering to give him a ship – he was the Supreme Leader, after all. He might be seething with anger, but he wasn’t stupid. Without knowing what exactly Hux had told the rest of the First Order – he had to have told them something to justify leaving their Supreme Leader behind – Kylo would have to be careful. Better if he wasn’t recognised; after all, Commenor seemed to support the damned Resistance. He couldn’t just ask for a ship – he would have to steal one.

With a huff, he made his way out of the forest and onto the lot of what seemed to be a maintenance plant for stranded spaceships. Oh, the irony. He could still see the column of smoke from his ruined TieWhisperer rising at the other end of the forest.

Kylo had only one stolen a spaceship. He’d done it to escape, after Luke had tried to kill him, as the other padawans had chased him off the planet while he was still wearing his nightclothes.

He knew a lot about spaceships though, and their mechanics weren’t very different from one ship to another.

He ducked (which didn’t really work, given his size) and made his way to a simple freighter, the one nearest to the edge of the forest. It was much smaller than the Falcon, but it would do. He focussed on the anatomy of the ship, the cables and pipes and used the Force to ignite the power cells in the ship’s belly. The engines sprung to life, the little ramp opened and Kylo jumped inside to get to the pilot’s seat. As he sat down, Luke’s voice sounded again.

_“Stealing Spaceships now, eh, kiddo? Just like your father did.”_

“He was a criminal. I am the Supreme Leader. This ship basically belongs to me”, he huffed in reply as he pulled several levers to ready the ship for departure. But his uncle’s voice had already faded again. The comment had reminded him of another time, when his old master had reminded him nearly every single day of how he had too much of his father in him. Almost a year had passed since he had killed his father. Though Han Solo would never come back as a Force Ghost and talk to him the way his uncle was, nevertheless Kylo didn’t believe that his father would ever stop haunting him. 

Nobody had noticed the theft of the small freighter in the light of day. Kylo Ren was flying, on his way back to punish Hux and the other traitors and regain control over the First Order. _His_ first order, he added bitterly in his thoughts. There was only one problem he had solve first: they’d just disappeared. Not one single Star Destroyer had been where he had ordered them to wait. That was not how he had thought the day would turn out for him. Not at all.

He knew with absolute certainty that Hux or one of the other Generals had planned to seize control over the First Order, maybe even on the day he’d killed Snoke and declared himself Supreme Leader. He had always expected some kind of treason: Hux had always despised him – a mutual feeling – but after his fight with Luke’s Force projection, every single one of them had questioned his decisions. He had felt heir unease and distrust in every single meeting, the glances they swapped when they thought he didn’t see. Fear of him was the only thing that had kept him in control for those three months, and it was fear he had to re-establish.

**You need more than just fear, my boy. You will need an ally.**

This time, the voice was different. It was not Luke’s voice. Where his uncle’s voice was quiet and taunting, this voice was booming and seemed to surround him. It filled every corner of the little cockpit and vibrated through Kylo’s bones, making cold shivers run up and down his spine.

“Who are you?” He’d tried to steady his voice, but the question had come out as a broken, terrified whisper.

**I am the help you so desperately need. Tell me, boy: do you want them to fear you, or do you want their loyalty? Fear alone cannot keep you in power.**

Kylo had managed to regain his composure, though his heart was still racing. 

“You’re a bodiless voice. How could you help me?”

**I am wise. And I have vast amounts of knowledge. I know things you couldn’t even dare to imagine, young one. You put on a brave face, but I can feel you’re trembling in fear.**

He decided to leave that last sentence uncommented – he _was_ trembling in fear. He’d never been good at hiding away his emotions. The voice didn’t leave him much time to answer before it went on.

**I can feel your hate, your rage. Its seeping through the cracks in your soul, filling your heart and thoughts with fog. You need to see through this fog, channel that rage and hate. Only then will you be a true leader. Else, they’ll just continue to laugh at you. Nuisances like the scavenger will continue to pity you.**

Was it pity he had seen in her eyes? He had offered her the whole galaxy and she had the nerve to pity him. He clenched his gloved hands to fists.

**I see that you’re a waste of my time, boy. You’re too weak to be an ally…**

“So that’s your plan? You’ll use me, _help_ me to gain control over the forces of the First Order and then seize the throne for yourself? I’ve been there before. I’ve killed my master and I certainly don’t need a new one.”

A deep, rumbling laughter sounded all around him and Kylo could see how the monitors in front of him vibrated with the sound.

**I certainly see that your longing for power hasn’t clouded your senses, Kylo Ren. You know who I am. Every child in the Galaxy knows my name, grew up with my story…**

A sweet melody started to reverberate from the steel walls of the ship, the tones somehow twisted and broken as if it was coming from a damaged child’s musical box. But Kylo recognized the tune immediately; even though it had been many years since his mother had last sung it to him, when he’d still been a little child. Sitting on her lap, playing with miniature spaceships.

_‘Tis the ballad of Darth Plagueis the Wise_

_He ruled not with terror but with wit and with lies._

_Hearing his name, they trembled in fear,_

_Darth Plagueis was their puppeteer._

_He used the force_

_To conquer death,_

_But arrogance it was_

_That stole his final breath._

_Now listen close, and make it known_

_You may reach for the stars, but not claim them as your own._

But that was it, wasn’t it? Darth Plagueis had been killed by his own student, murdered in his sleep because he had become rash and arrogant. His story had become a children’s tune. The melody had stopped, the last mutilated notes fading into utter silence.

“Uncle, are you trying to mock me?”, he pressed; but it was a rather weak attempt to loosen the knot of panic that had formed in his stomach. But still: Darth Sidious had killed Darth Plagueis. His mortal remains had been Palpatine’s biggest trophy in the time of his reign. And no one – not even the Sith who had conquered death for a few decades – could come back if he was already dead. Finally, Kylo’s thoughts cleared.

“That’s what you want. You want me to help you find a new body and come back from – wherever it is you are”, he concluded. Hs mind was already racing through all the tactics and possibilities and opportunities.

**Clever boy.**

It sounded amused, this time.

***

**[Somewhere in space]**

Hux was standing at the railing of the main bridge, looking down at the hangar with all the soldiers buzzing below, like bees in a hive. They would be his soon. He turned his back to them and let his gaze wander over the faces of the First Order Generals he and Bright had assembled on the Bridge to tell them… their own version of the story. It had taken a little time for him and Bright to agree on what exactly they would tell them.

Hux straightened his stance a little more. He’d put on his best uniform and had the laundry droids straighten it a little more only a few minutes before. Then, Hux opened his mouth to speak – but Bright was faster.

“We assembled you here to tell you that our Supreme Leader will not come back.”

Bright paused and waited while a wave of whispers and murmurs floated through the ranks of the assembled Generals.

“When we jumped out of hyperspace, we found ourselves in the middle of an asteroid belt blocking the way to Commenor. Supreme Leader Ren gave order to carry on with the plan, but his ship was hit and vanished, his comm remained silent. We needed to make a decision, and the rational option was to cut our losses and retreat. There was no chance to rescue our Supreme Leader.”

Hux’s view was clouding with anger. Bright had stolen the scene and Hux knew that his new rival for power would try to dispose of him sooner or later. At the very least Bright would want to render him innocuous by taking away his direct command. Nobody in their right mind would want to share the power over the galaxy. For now, he would remain impassive, but he made a mental note to eliminate Bright as soon as he got the chance to.

***

**[In the cave system on Commenor]**

It had been shortly after Finn, Rose and Chewie had taken off in the Falcon that Rey felt it; a searing rage shot through her like a flash of lighting. She was standing in the middle of the hangar as it hit her. She knew that this time, it wasn’t her own rage. In those three months, she had often felt his wrath, but never before had it been this strong. Something had happed. The exact same moment she’d thought it, she heard Poe, who was standing in front of one of their radar displays, shout into his comm.

“Guys, you need to listen. The First Order is here. On the other side of the asteroid belt, right in front of you.”

Rey turned toward him.

“He’s there”, she told Poe as he noticed her standing beside him. “Kylo Ren is with them.”

“What? How do you know?”

“I just know, okay? It’s a Force-thing.” That wasn’t exactly a lie.

With a suspicious glance at Rey, Poe grabbed the comm again to forward Rey’s message.

***

The next few minutes were hell. Rey could still feel Kylo’s white-hot rage, his determination to get to the Falcon. She stood helplessly with Poe, both following the little dots on the Radar with their eyes, the hangar had become still with anxious silence. No one had noticed that Leia had joined them, until Poe muttered: “General, do you think they know we’re here? Or did they just somehow spot the Falcon?”

There was another, silent question hiding beneath the first: would they need to evacuate the whole place? Could they even do it, or did the First Order bring some other new, dreadful weapon to finish them, this time for good?

Leia took a few seconds before she answered, Poe and Rey’s concern reflected in her own voice. They were aware that the whole hangar was listening.

“Maybe. Let us not speculate and give it a few seconds to see what happens next. If we begin to panic and start to evacuate now, we could give away our position. Unless, of course, they already know.”

Leia was right, but the silence became nearly too heavy to bear. Then, suddenly, Rey felt something else; a jolt threw her out of balance, nearly sending her to the floor. For a split second, panic caught her because the only reason for the floor to shake on a seismologically inactive planet was a detonation, which could only mean that they were under attack. Catching her balance just in time, she searched Leia’s glance, only to notice that nobody else seemed to have noticed the jolt of the floor.

Another wave of Kylo’s emotions washed over her a few seconds later. This time, it was fear.

“Did… did something happen?”, she asked quietly, her gaze sweeping over the display.

“They are… retracting”, Poe stated incredulously, his eyes still fixed on the display. He was right; all the dots had vanished. “Finn, Rose, Chewie, do you hear me? What happened up there?”, Poe shouted into the comm. “The radars don’t show their ships anymore. It seems they’re withdrawing. I can’t believe I’m saying this. They’re gone.”

“We made it!”, Rey could hear Rose cheer through the comm.

“That means they just came for the Falcon and don’t know we’re here.” Leia released a relieved breath. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to sit down for a while.”

Relief washed over Rey as she turned to leave the hanger. Her friends were safe.

But she could still feel Kylo’s distress and fear through the Bond. Whatever it was that had put him into this kind of fright, as long as she could feel it, he was alive.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway”, she told herself. “He’s my enemy.” At least this time she was only lying to herself instead of her friends.

***

**[Somewhere in Space]**

Kylo had not agreed to Plagueis’ deal. He’d just gotten rid of his old master and finally was in control of himself again, after all those years. Why would he want to have another master, doing the same things to him Snoke had done? No. Kylo would go back to the First Order, he’d kill Hux and Bright, who’d often hung around Hux those past three months, for their betrayal and be back in control. He was the Supreme Leader now, and nothing and nobody would change this. He certainly wouldn’t need the help of an ancient, dead and bodiless Sith Lord to get back in charge.

 _You did the right thing for the completely wrong reasons_. This time, Luke’s voice sounded very exasperated and sad as it floated through the cockpit.

Kylo ignored it. One thing needed to be done as soon as he had regained control over his empire: he would need to finish Plagueis for good before the ancient dark-sider could grow stronger again and threaten Kylo’s position of power. He may be dead, but that didn’t make him any less dangerous.

***

**[In the caves on Commenor]**

He lay in the snow to Rey’s feet. His midnight hair was tousled, tiny snowflakes that had tangled in the black strands reminded her of stars in a night sky. Blood was dripping from the gash she’d just cut into his face, the red droplets painting the snow on the ground a deep scarlet. Rey towered over his form, the blue gleam of her lightsaber reflecting in his eyes as he gazed up at her in a mix of rage, fear and awe. A peaceful silence had settled over the forest, drowning out sounds of the battle raging in the sky above them.

 **Do it** , the voice whispered. **Kill him**.

She raised her lightsaber, the cold metal hilt in her hands still new to her touch. There was still no sound as the blue blade cut through his chest. Rey drew the saber back. Kylo’s gaze never left her even as the light faded from his dark eyes, thin rivulets of blood flowed from his mouth and mingled with the already blood-soaked snow beneath.

Rey woke with a scream – as always. Sweat soaked her thin nightshift, her hair was tangled and matted to her face, panting as if she’d just escaped a hoard of rathtars. It was the same as every night, only the nightmares varied. Sometimes, she saw how she’d left him lying unconsciously in the throne room, sometimes he killed her. Most of the time, she killed him. She wasn’t sure which image haunted her more. Rey couldn’t remember when she had last had a decent night’s sleep since that day on the Supremacy (she tried to block out all the thoughts and memories that followed this first one like pearls on a string).

The truth was, C3PO was right. Anger was an emotion for Sith, not for Jedi. But she felt it, that boiling rage deep beneath her skin, like a caged beast ready to lash out and break free of its constraints. At first, she had thought that this rage didn’t belong to her, that she was just experiencing his rage, through the bond they still shared. The bond that should have broken the moment of Snoke’s death. But it hadn’t. There were moments when she didn’t feel a thing and then, suddenly, a wave of emotions hit her that she clearly knew were his. That’s how Rey recognized the rage she felt more and more frequently as belonging to her, and her alone. Which horrified her.

There had been that voice, in the woods on Starkiller Base, as he was lying in the snow to her feet, staring up at her, waiting for her to cut him into pieces. Kill him, it had said. Kill him now, you want to do it. She had wanted to kill him for what he’d done, just for a split second. Did it matter that she’d wanted to do it, so long as she hadn’t acted upon it? It wasn’t that long ago, but it felt like a different lifetime.

Of course, she had never told anybody about that rage inside her, as well as she had never told anyone about the bond, or what she had found out about Luke’s secret, or about what really happened in the throne room. All those secrets, slowly forming a deep chasm between her and her friends. She was afraid that one day, it would be too vast for her to cross it.

She felt a gentle tug through the Force and lifted her head just in time to see Ben a few feet away, near the door. “You told me I wasn’t alone”, she whispered, her voice still brittle from screaming in her sleep, “It was a lie, after all.” 

He didn’t answer, he just looked at her with a strange expression in his eyes before he vanished again in the beat of a heart. A silent tear ran down Rey’s face.

***

“Miss Rey, you seem very distressed again.”

“That’s because I _am_ distressed, Threepio.” She didn’t look at the droid.

After the nightmare and the brief moment, she had seen him through their Bond, Rey had failed to find sleep again.

“May I ask for the reason?”

“None of your business.” That had come out ruder than she’d intended, and Rey felt a pang of guilt. C3PO was here to help her, and as annoying as the droid could be, he was also one of her friends.

“I’m sorry, Threepio. That was mean. Interaction with other beings on a daily basis is still new to me.”

He nodded in agreement.

“The thing is, I’ve never had friends before but now that I finally have friends, they leave. I mean, sure they went off on a very noble mission and I’m proud of them, but I’m not able to go with them and to fight with them and protect them, so I’m also terrified for them.”

She waved her hand over all the books and scrolls they had scattered over the floor all around them. Rey was sitting cross-legged in the middle of this mess, like queen ruling over her own chaos. She knew it was stupid, but she felt as if she’d been abandoned again. Their lives carried on, while all she was able to do was studying some ancient texts. And wallow in self-pity, of course.

“I’m still here”, sounded a voice from the door and Rey turned towards the door.

“Poe, you gave me a fright. My heart”, she grinned, hand resting on her chest.

“Yeah, I have this effect on people”, he winked and leaned against the doorway.

“I was on my way to talk to General Organa. I think it’s time we worked out a better evacuation plan; I think after this morning we can all agree on that. And then I thought I’d look after you, too. Are you okay? You looked really pale.”

“I panicked. Same as everyone else in the hangar.”

“How did you know Ren was there?”

“It’s somehow obvious to me”, she replied.

Poe shrugged. “You called it a Force-thing. Leia didn’t seem to feel a thing.”

His silent question seemed to hover over her like a blade. It wasn’t the first time Rey wondered what they would do if they found out about her bond with Kylo.

“The Force has its own mysteries, I guess”, she finally shrugged. Poe didn’t seem convinced.

“What’s the matter, Poe?”, she added tersely as he still hovered in the doorway.

He shook his head in reply. “I met him once. He tortured me. You were kidnapped by him, too. Maybe such things connect two people who can wield the Force. I don’t know.”

It was a great effort not to let the alarm she felt show on her features, but Rey managed and made sure to look him in the eyes as he continued.

“I don’t know anything about the Force, but I thought maybe you acquired kind of an alarm system to warn you if the enemy’s near. Now that I said it, it sounds really stupid. Sorry to bother you.”

With that, Poe shrugged and left. Rey released the breath she’d been holding in a deep exhale.

“He should stick to piloting”, Threepio remarked when Poe was gone and for the first time, Rey found she agreed with the droid.

The rest of the afternoon felt like eternity, reading boring ancient texts with a precocious droid for hours and hours.

“So, all this text basically says is that as a Jedi, one needs to be equable, calm and at peace with oneself”, she finally summed up.

“You are none of those three things, Miss Rey, if I might say so.”

“So, I’ll never be a real Jedi”, she quipped as she rose and shook out her legs which hurt from the long hours of sitting and reading.

“Miss Rey, where are you going?”, Threepio asked as she made her way towards the door.

“I need to talk to Leia. Someone once told me I should let the past die to become what I was meant to be, and it seems the time has come to act on this advice.”

But before she asked Leia, she would talk about it with her best friend.

***

“Finn, do you have a moment to talk?”

“Rey! I know it’s been only two days, but I miss you so much. How are you? Everything alright over there? You sound a little distressed.”

“I spent the morning with Threepio.”

“You have my heartfelt sympathy. Chewie is beside me and he nods, by the way. We got you, girl.”

Rey laughed, and it felt good. She didn’t know when she’d last laughed.

“How’s the mission going? Do you have a plan?”

“Ummm, we’re discussing something. There’s been a little argument this morning on how to deal with the matter.”

Rey nodded, remembered he couldn’t see her, and gave a little sound of agreement. She knew they couldn’t talk about the mission any further since there was always a chance the First Order was monitoring the comms.

It was likely that Chewie wanted to blow the whole building complex up while Rose and Finn were rooting for the more subtle course of action of just taking the young recruits with them and flee. Her heart warmed at the thought of her friends while simultaneously it cost all her strength to ignore the danger they were getting themselves into.

“What’s the matter, Rey?”, Finn asked again. His voice had turned serious again.

“I need your advice.”

“Jedi-advice? I’ll do my best.”

“I was rather thinking about girl-advice.”

The silence on the end of the line that followed was deafening, and a Rey had to smile.

“Don’t worry, it’s neither. It’s a life-advice.” She could practically feel Finns exhale of relief as he joined in with hearty laugh.

“Okay. All those Jedi texts agree in one point: they all say that to be a real Jedi and to use all your powers, you need to be calm and steady.” She paused and practically saw Finn flinch on the other end.

“Yes, that’s what I thought, too”, she agreed with his silence. “Also, ‘one needs to be at peace with oneself’.”

“Maybe you should start by reading those texts alone instead of inviting Threepio. He could even annoy the dead back to life.” His voice was sober, but Rey chuckled.

“Actually, I thought it would help if I went back to Jakku. To where my parents are buried.”

“Wait – when we met, you fought with teeth and claws to get back to that hellhole of a planet because you were certain that your family would be coming back for you. And when you came back you were crushed because you’d discovered that they’d sold you and were buried there. And now you tell me that you want to visit them? I don’t… I mean, what happened in the meantime?”

She had told Finn the truth about her parents after their escape from Crait. Well, not the whole truth, of course – she’d told him she’d seen it in a vision, instead of something like _“Kylo Ren told me when I saw him through the Force, and he was half-naked”_.

Of course, Rey had never told her friends how she’d found out the truth about her parents; firstly, she couldn’t tell them about the how out of fear that they would reject her if they found out the truth about the Force bond and secondly, because she didn’t want to talk about it at all. If she did, she was sure it would overwhelm her, drag her into a darkness she wouldn’t know how to escape. But she didn’t really have a choice. If she wanted to be at peace with herself and gain full control over her powers, she would have to confront her past. To stop the First Order. To stop Him.

“Do you think it’s a good idea? Going back to Jakku, I mean.” Finn was concerned.

“I honestly don’t know. But I don’t see another way to make peace with myself. If I can face down my memories and accept them, maybe I can finally let go of my past and all this anger. That might come as close to being ‘calm’ as I can be.”

Finn thought about it for a moment. “Then I guess it is a good idea. Have you talked to Leia about this?”

“I wanted to tell you first”, Rey replied.

***

**[Nur]**

Rose had heard of the water moon of Nur in the Mustafar System, and like everybody else in the Galaxy, she’d heard of the underwater-fortress the Empire under Palpatine had built there as a prison for Jedi. After the Imperial Era had ended with Palpatine’s death, the fort had been vacant – until Snoke and his First Order began to use it as a military academy. An academy in which children, who had been abducted from their families by the First Order, were trained to become Stormtroopers.

They’d been hovering in space near the Mustafar-System for a while now, and the plan to free the children from the academy had taken shape, despite the sharp divisions regarding the ways of proceeding.

Chewie had been all in on blowing the whole place up, but Finn and Rose were able to talk some sense into the Wookie – it was not wise to blow up a place of which most was covered by water, at least not if you wanted to rescue someone out of it.

Which left the overall question: what would they do?

“We are three people”, Rose wondered aloud. “We have to be very fast and very quiet – if one single guard notices us, it’s over.” Their mission, and their lives. She didn’t need to add that, they all knew.

“Actually, we’re two people”, Finn corrected. “One of us needs to stay behind and fly the Falcon to escape when we succeed. _If_ we succeed.”

The Wookie growled his agreement.

“We can’t possibly do it. Leia was right, it’s suicide.”

Another growl from Chewie, and Rose furrowed her brows, deep in thought.

“What do you mean, you have an old friend who could help?”

***

They had indeed called for help. Well, Chewie had, and the Mon Calamari had answered, promising to send a few volunteers to Nur for help. They had agreed to meet with them directly in the ocean covering the whole moon. They’d find them as soon as Finn and Rose were underwater.

The plan was: They’d wait until it was night on Nur, and it was likely that everyone was fast asleep except for a few guards they might have to knock down on their way. Finn and Rose would meet the Mon Calamari underwater, break into the academy together, then the Mon Calamari would start a diversion – they’d brought a lot of underwater-detonators to cause some hubbub, while Finn and Rose would comb through the fortress to find the children.

The last part of the mission – unlock the hangar platform that had to be on top of the needle-shaped fortress – so that Chewie could land the Falcon, would be the hardest.

However, it sounded a lot easier than it actually was, Rose thought as she put on the diving gear they’d taken with them for exactly that purpose.

Chewie howled to tell them the Mon Calamari awaited them in the water near the fortress and started to approach. As they descended through the cloud cover in the moon’s atmosphere, it was the middle of the night. The ocean beneath was as black as ink, the high needle of the fortress looming in the distance.

The Falcon was now hovering only a few feet above water level, and Chewie opened the ramp so Rose and Finn could just jump out. A gush of cold night-air hit them in the face as they stared at the black, calm surface of the water.

Chewie growled his farewell and promised to meet them as soon as they gave him the clear for landing on the unlocked platform.

„Rose – “, Finn began hesitantly; suddenly he didn’t know what to do with his hands. Rose was sure he wanted to talk about what had happened on Crait, but she was too afraid what he had to say about that kiss. _She_ had initiated it, after all, but he’d never even mentioned it, so she’d just joined him in pretending it never happened.

She shook her head. “No, please don’t say anything that could count as a good-bye. We’ll make it out of there alive, so there’s no need to say whatever it is you wanted to say.”

If Rose was being honest with herself, she was simply afraid that whatever Finn had wanted to tell her weren’t the words she wanted to hear.

If he wanted to tell her that he liked her only as a friend, she would die knowing that her first kiss… no, she would not linger on the thought. She gave Finn a reassuring smile, which somehow felt very forced, pulled up the oxygen mask of her diver’s suit and jumped out of the Falcon’s entryway to meet their new allies.

***

They made it into the fortress in a matter of minutes. Their amphibian allies who had accompanied them on their swim to the fortress, had helped them dive to the bottom of the ocean and crack open the sewage shaft.

As soon as they had entered the shaft, the ground began to tremble. The Mon Calamari hadn’t waisted any time to start the diversion. In the distance, an alarm sounded, and heavy footsteps echoed through a hallway; the guards were running toward the noise and away from the shaft from which Rose and Finn now emerged onto dry ground.

They got rid of their diving suits in a matter of seconds and were on their way to the higher levels of the fort to search for the captured children.

It was so easy Rose still couldn’t believe it. Even as she and Finn stopped creeping through deserted hallways and started actively searching for the recruit’s quarters, sifting through every floor on their way up to the fort’s top, they encountered no one. The interior reminded her of a Stardestroyer’s. The dark metallic panels on the walls lit their way with their embedded white lights.

They still hadn’t found any recruits, and Rose was starting to get anxious. There weren’t any windows in the building, but something told her that they were above sea level and had been for a while now.

“They have to be somewhere on a higher level”, Finn whispered in an attempt to calm her down a little. But if you didn’t count Canto Bight – which hadn’t exactly ended in their favour – this was Rose’s first mission. There was no calming down.

She grabbed the pendant around her neck. _You would be proud if you could see your little sister now_ , _Paige_ , she thought.

Finn caught her arm to stop her from turning around the corner blindly and slowly raised his blaster. Rose’s gaze fell on three Stormtroopers standing guard in the corridor. They would have to shoot all three of them – with only two blasters – simultaneously to avoid the remaining ones activating the alarm. Together, they aimed their blasters, which was a little difficult to do while hiding around a corner and shot.

All three troopers fell to the floor at the same time, each one with a smouldering whole in their armour. Rose glanced at Finn, who shrugged.

“I learned to shoot a blaster before I could walk. I’m fast.”

She felt a slight pang of guilt for shooting them, but she told herself that they had made their choice. Finn had fled. Those men had not. They could have, but instead they had been holding a bunch of children captive. She couldn’t start pitying them now. She could only focus on saving those who wanted to be saved.

Finn and Rose made their way to top of the fortress, knocking out two other guards in front of the elevator and shooting another three in the back when the doors of the elevator swung open on the next storey.

This level looked different, Rose noticed. Instead of endless straight hallways, the wall-panels on that level were white and empty tubular cots were embedded in the walls.

There weren’t even dormitories, just row after row of those bunk bed-tubes.

“This is it”, Rose whispered. “The children’s quarters. For some reason without the children.”

The two of them looked around in confusion.

Their blasters raised, they rounded the next corner – to find a bunch of children, huddling together in the farthest corner of the corridor. Some of them looked as if they were still half-asleep. None of them looked older than six years, and they all wore nightshifts in the same blue colour.

Rose’s heart clenched. If those children had huddled in a corner as an automatic response to being woken in the middle of the night, she didn’t want to know what was done to them on a regular basis.

They both immediately took down their blasters, staring back at the children.

Rose was quick to put the blaster back in its holster, raising both of her hands to signal that they wouldn’t harm the children. Finn beside her was taking her cue and did the same. The kids still hadn’t moved.

“We’re not here to harm you”, Rose slowly began to explain. “We’re here to free you.”

“O – outside?”, a little girl with messy blond hair asked frightened.

“Yes. We’re from the Resistance.”

“But we can’t go”, the little girl replied. “Master Crain say we mustn’t.” Several of the other children nodded their heads in agreement; the little girl seemed to be their leader.

Master Crain. Maybe the head of the training camp.

“Master Crain is not here”, Finn argued.

The blond little girl nodded, deep in contemplation.

“But if Master Crain catches us, he will electrocute us. Or even worse. And he’ll electrocute you, too.”

Hate rushed through Rose. Whoever those people were, she wanted to hurt them just like they had hurt those children and their families.

She slowly kneeled on the ground to speak to the little one on eye-level.

“I promise that we will be out here in a few minutes, and then we will bring you to a safe place. No more Master Cain, no more other masters and trainers, no more electrocutions. Never again, okay?”

The girl nodded again, and the children seemed to relax a little. “Will there be forests?”

The question surprised Rose, but Finn was quick to answer. “Yes. Forests and lakes and blue skies and sun and rain…” He drifted off.

“I’ve never seen a forest”, the girl told them with a shrug. “But I would like to. And I want to see the sky. I’ve never seen it.”

Again, the other children nodded, their eyes starting to gleam at the thought of all those things Finn had listed.

“You’ve… you’ve never seen the sky before?”

“We mustn’t go outside”, the little one explained.

Rose felt a lump in her throat, and rage continued to fill her. These had been children captured from all over the Galaxy, taken away from their families to be trained to fight and used in wars against their own people. Held captive, never even seeing the sky. And the Galaxy let them, even the Resistance had looked the other way.

“Would you like to come with us, then?”, Finn asked. They all nodded hesitantly, but every single one of them stood up to follow them out.

“Okay. You have to be really quiet now”, Rose instructed before the little group entered the hallway. “You have to be quiet until we tell you it’s okay to talk again. Yes?”

Again, nodding.

The children complied. Of course they did, they were trained to obey every order they were given.

“How many other children are here?”, Finn asked quietly.

“A few”, the little girl whispered. “There are about fifteen others that are a little older, and about ten others that are way older than us.”

Finn and Rose exchanged a relieved glance at her words. About thirty children. They would all fit into the Falcon easily. If they made it that far.

“Can you help finding the other children?”

“That won’t be necessary”, a voice behind them called out. A few older kids – teenagers, rather – were standing right behind them, all wearing red nightshifts. The different groups seemed to wear different colours, depending on their age, Rose noticed.

“We heard voices. Why were you looking for us? What do you want from us? Leave us alone.”

The boy who’d spoken seemed to be the oldest. It was obvious that he was as frightened by the nightly visitors as the rest of the children, but he’d put on a brave face.

“We don’t want to hurt you!”, Finn started to explain. “We’re here to free you. To break you out.”

“What’s your name?”, Rose gently asked the boy who had positioned himself in front of the others, as if he wanted to protect them. He couldn’t be older than sixteen.

He hesitated. “I’m CL-5509.”

“That’s your number”, Finn told him, “not your name. My number was FN-2187, but I’m Finn now.”

“FN…Finn. I’m called CL, for short. How about… Ciel?”

Finn nodded with a small smile.

“Look, I’ve been there, once”, Finn told them firmly. “I was a stormtrooper, just like you’re training to be, but I’ve made it, I was able to flee from one of their Star Destroyers. I’m free now. And I’m with the Resistance, fighting to free the rest of the Galaxy of the First Order, as well.”

“If we come with you”, Ciel asked with a tense expression, “how do we know the Resistance wouldn’t use us to fight for them, too? We were told some things about them.”

During all the preparations for their noble mission, neither of them had thought about the possibility that the First Order could have indoctrinated their young recruits, set them against the Resistance they were going to fight later in their lives.

“The Resistance doesn’t do things like this. We’re the good guys – if anybody wants to fight for our course, they volunteer to fight. Nobody is forced. We would bring you to a safe place and help you find your families.”

“We don’t even know our families. They could be worse than the trainers here”, another boy interjected.

“Finn, we have to hurry”, Rose reminded him. Their time was running out. “We need to find the central control room to unlock the hangar platform for Chewie to land the Falcon.”

Just as she’d finished her sentence, the door to the hallway swung open. A huge, menacing man with a face full of scars was blocking the way out, a cruel smile twisting his features as he raised a huge stick that looked like a cattle prod.

“Well, looks as if the Resistance paid us a little visit. How nice. Let me welcome you properly.”

The end of the stick flared to life, buzzing with blue electricity. It _was_ a cattle prod. Then, the man activated something on the comm he wore on his belt, and sirens began to wail all along the hallways.

The sound was deafening and Finn, Rose and the kids stared in horror for a moment. After a stunned Rose reached for her blaster, but it wasn’t in its holster. Someone had been faster. Seconds later, the man with the scarred face sunk to the floor, a huge hole burnt into his chest.

Ciel held Rose’s smouldering blaster in his hands, giving her a gleeful grin.

“I can show you the way to the control room to open the hangar platform”, he told Finn and Rose as he handed back the blaster. “I know where it is. But we need to hurry, the alarms automatically seal off the whole fortress.”

The children seemed ready to follow them, all of them staring at Ciel in awe of what he’d just done.

“We have a plan to escape”, Finn said, still baffled by the boy’s move. “But we need your help. All of you.”

“Rose, you take the other children to the platform, I’m sure they’ll know the way. Take the others here, too. Ciel” – he addressed the boy directly – “could you describe the way to the control room? I’ll go there, unlock the gates to the platform and meet you outside.”

“No”, Rose interrupted vehemently. “I can’t let you go alone. You’d never make it to the platform alive, Finn! That plan is a death sentence!”

“There’s no other way. Stop discussing and take the children, Rose!” His eyes held a silent plea.

“You saved my life on Crait, and I’m grateful you did. But they –“, he waved at the children that were staring at them – “those kids are the reason we’re here. We knew it could cost us our lives, and we agreed to do it anyway.”

Rose nodded; she could feel tears welling up in her eyes.

“Come with me! We need to hurry”, she told the kids.

“I’ll come with you”, the boy – Ciel – told Finn.

“No way, kid. You’re going with Rose.”

“You’ll never find the control room without my help!”, Ciel insisted. “It’s difficult to find from here. And I know a fast way out, a passage that leads from the control room to the platform.”

Heavy steps were echoing through the hallways. The guards were coming for them.

“HURRY!”, Finn shouted, and Rose led the kids out into the corridor.

The guards were turning around the corner, at least a dozen of them, opening blaster fire, and Rose and Finn started to fire back, knocking out a few of the stormtroopers.

There were still enough guards left. The children in the other dormitories, who’d been alerted by the blaring sirens, ran out into the hallway to meet Finn and Rose, and Rose gestured for them to follow her along the hallway. There wasn’t any time to count, but it seemed all children had made it so far.

“Are there weaponries nearby?”, Rose asked the young girl sprinting beside her as they ducked, and a blaster bolt shot by above their heads.

The girl shook her head, her eyes shimmering with fear.

“No. The weapons are locked away except for training.”

“Of course, they are”, Rose muttered. “Can you lead the way to the platform?”

The girl nodded, pointing ahead to where the corridor parted, and they took the left wing.

Rose threw a last glance back over her shoulder, towards Finn and Ciel, who were sprinting towards the right wing. Finn caught her gaze. Rose wondered for a brief moment if it had been a mistake to interrupt him in the Falcon, if she should have let him tell her what he wanted to tell. It was too late now.

The guards were right behind them, but they’d stopped firing their blasters. _Maybe it’s because they aren’t allowed to hurt the recruits_ , Rose wondered.

The hallways were lit by flashing red alarm lights. The sirens were still wailing, the sound reverberating painfully shrill from the walls.

***

Finn and Ciel had made it to the upper levels of the fortress unharmed, but the guards were still following behind them, firing their blasters.

Finn had eliminated some of the guards with his own blaster fire, but it was not enough. He felt his own strength draining quickly, especially after all those stairs.

“There it is!”, Ciel shouted, pointing ahead.

Finn followed the boy’s gaze to a pair of access gates.

“The left one is the only entrance to the control room. the right one leads to the platform. It has four entryways; your friend and the other recruits should be on the platform by now!”

 _If they’d made it_ , Finn added in his thoughts. He knew he wouldn’t make it out alive. The control room had only one entrance. The guards would’ve caught up in a few seconds. There would be no way out. He wished he’d had the guts to talk to Rose, back in the Falcon when he still had the chance.

“Okay. Ciel, you go right to meet the others. I’ll disable the lock-down-systems and meet you there”, he lied, but he could tell from the look on the boy’s face that Ciel knew they wouldn’t see each other again. The guards pursuing them had nearly caught up by now.

They parted ways. Finn fired a bolt at the wall-panel beside the steel door, which immediately slid open, and stepped inside the control room.

Except that it wasn’t the control room. No panels, no buttons, no blinking lights. Finn was standing on the platform. His heart sunk as he whirled around and his gaze fell on a window front, parting the platform from the control room. Ciel was inside the control room, pressing buttons. The door behind him had been shut again but was gleaming red with the blaster bolts that struck it from outside. The guards had pursued Ciel, and the door would give way any second.

Finn turned to make his way back and save the boy, as a voice called out his name from across the platform.

“Finn!”

Rose and the others had made it, waiting for him in the distance.

Suddenly, a rumbling sounded from above and the ceiling began to slide open, revealing a night-sky full of stars, the cold air rushing in like a wave.

A howl sounded through his comm, and he could see the Falcon’s silhouette hovering above them, ready to land as soon as the ceiling had opened far enough for it to pass through. Ciel had done it.

The Falcon’s ramp was opening, and Rose and the children ran towards the ship.

He couldn’t leave Ciel here. He couldn’t.

Ciel looked up, his eyes met Finn’s, and the boy gave a small nod – just as the first blaster bolt hit him in the back.

Finn screamed.

But it was too late to save Ciel. There was nothing he could do to help the boy.

Dazedly, he sprinted back towards the Falcon that was hovering only a few feet above the ground, ready to depart.

They’d made it onto the ship. Chewie didn’t lose any time and steered them away from the platform before the guards could shut it again, shooting out into the inky blackness of night. Finn sunk to the ground, a numbness of grief and shock was spreading through him. They hadn’t been able to save _everyone_ , and he knew that they would _never_ be able to save everyone. Every triumph would only bring more losses, he realized. Another hero was gone.

“Where is Ciel?”, a little girl beside him chirped.

“He stayed… to save you all” Finn said.

“Is he going to be alright?” asked the girl.

***

**[In the caves on Commenor]**

As Rey entered the control room on the upper levels of the cave system, her gaze wandered over the blinking consoles and lights and panels that covered every space on the stone walls. The sight somehow a little of the weight on her chest. Being surrounded by so many devices and technologies always made her scavenger-heart soar. The humming of sensors and beeping of radars calmed her and she finally noticed Leia besides Connix. The soldier was one of Poe’s friends, but Rey had never really talked to her.

“General Organa?” It seemed fitting to address Leia with her official title when there were so many others around them. Leia turned her head away from the radar-holo she’d been watching with Connix. Her silver-streaked chestnut hair was up in another elaborate hairdo. Rey always wondered if Leia did them, herself.

“I need to talk to you about an urgent matter.”

Some of the surrounding soldiers threw Rey curious glances.

“You’re a hero of the Resistance now”, Leia told her as they made their way to a remote nook carved into the cave’s limestone, “You saved them on Crait, and you killed Snoke. Give yourself a little more time and you won’t notice their stares anymore.” She patted Rey’s back as they sat down. Someone had put a few cushions on the hewn stone benches. Rey hadn’t exactly told them that she’d killed Snoke, they just had assumed it after the bounty that was put on her head.

“Tell me what concerns you, Rey.”

She wanted to tell Leia, all of it. The Bond, the nightmares that haunted her, how she killed Kylo Ren in her sleep, night after night.

“Actually, there are two things.” Leia’s brown eyes were warm and encouraged Rey to continue.

“When I was on Ach To, Luke first refused to train me. He told me he saw something in me that scared him.”

“But he did train you in the end, didn’t he?”

Rey hesitated. “It didn’t go well. There was this cave, by the sea, and it called to me, it wanted to show me my parents, and I took the offer. I didn’t even hesitate.”

“So, you’re on the Dark Side now?” Rey was surprised at Leia’s amusement. The older woman took her hand.

“Rey, after what happened with his Jedi Academy… Luke never got over it. It wasn’t his fault, but nevertheless…”

Rey bit her lip. So, Luke had never told his sister why exactly her son had given in to the Dark Side. The anger in her stomach began to boil again. But she couldn’t tell Leia the truth now that her brother was dead. Not right now, at any rate. It wouldn’t bring her son back and Leia had lost enough loved ones already.

Leia continued, “I can imagine that Luke was a bit overly cautious on those matters. But no matter how much the dark is calling to you, it’s always a decision. No matter, how much anger and suffering you are drowning in, joining the Dark Side is a decision, not something that just happens. Same goes with joining the Light Side. Does this answer your question?”

Rey nodded in relief. A heavy weight was lifted off her shoulders.

“How is it working out for you with the Jedi texts? Could you already repair the lightsaber?”

Rey had never told Leia how the saber had broken in two, and Leia had never asked.

“I can’t manage even the simplest things. On Ach To, I thought I had learned so much already, but I’ve come to realise I was wrong.”

Leia just shrugged. “Things like these take their time. What else did you want to discuss?”

“I’ve decided to go on a little trip to Jakku to let go of my past to find the peace of mind and calm that I need to be a real Jedi.”

A pause. Leia blinked in surprise.

“Well, I certainly didn’t expect that.”

“So, you think it’s a bad idea?”, Rey asked, suddenly insecure about the whole idea.

“I never said that. But if you’re prepared to face this kind of thing, it could help. Maybe not with the whole Jedi-training, but for yourself.”

Leia squeezed Rey’s hand reassuringly before rising from the bench. She seemed a little stiff and Rey suddenly noticed how the General had aged since the Battle on Crait and the death of her brother. Leia was too tough to let sorrow show, but the gaunt cheeks and the stiffness in her legs as she stood up couldn’t be covered up as well as an aching heart could be.

“Take one of the smallest ships – best if you asked Poe which one he’d recommend – and take off before the next sunrise. You have one day. And cover your face, it’s plastered everywhere on the holo-net and I doubt even one single person on the way would be loyal enough to the Resistance to relinquish a reward of several million units for your capture, but I don’t need to tell you this. And, Rey?”

Leia pulled her into a hug. “Be safe. May the Force be with you.”

***

**[Coruscant]**

Kylo had come up with a plan. It would have to suffice. Since he didn’t know what exactly Hux and Bright – he was sure they were the initiators of the treason – had told the other Generals, he would first have to gather information on the official version of what had happened in Commenor’s asteroid belt. And to return to the First Order, he needed to find out their current whereabouts. The information could be easily acquired on a planet that had openly pledged their loyalty to the First Order. The nearest such planet was Coruscant, which had been centre of his grandfather’s empire before, too.

He made the jump to Coruscant in a few parsecs. The vast net of streets and buildings that formed Galactic City appeared in front of the cockpit’s windows as the ship jolted out of hyperspace. Kylo squinted in the sunlight that reflected off the thousands of skyscrapers covering the planet’s surface, making the city glitter like a field of kyber crystals. It was a beautiful sight, only ruined by the constant buzzing of all the spaceships in the surrounding atmosphere. They gathered above the city like a swarm of insects.

Kylo would hop off the ship in a side street, have a little chat here and there, throw a glance into the holo-net and be on his way back to the First Order by the end of the day. He would have to be careful not to be recognized for a whole bunch of reasons, but in a city this size, anonymity was practically guaranteed. Adding to this, the Galaxy didn’t know what he looked like, since he’d always worn his mask in public. He’d let the pieces be welded back together after he had become Supreme Leader. Nevertheless, he pulled up his black hood before entering the street. There was no reason to take unnecessary risks.

Kylo didn’t have to search long for information; the whole city was full of holo-net-screens to show the news to the inhabitants passing by. The screens were plastered to the sides of nearly every building (which looked really ugly, he thought) and the “loss” of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren was the headline of the day. He stopped to read one of the texts scrolling over the screen in front of him.

Apparently, Hux and Bright had told the rest of the First Order that Kylo’s ship had been destroyed.

On another screen, Hux’s ugly face plastered the wall, apparently it was a video comm from that morning.

“Supreme Leader Kylo Ren was lost in a manoeuvre to capture some members of the terrorist group that is known to the Galaxy as the ‘Resistance’”. Hux’s image made a little rhetorical pause to let the gravity of the news sink in with the viewers. 

Someone bumped into Kylo from behind as he’d come to a halt on the middle of the sidewalk, but he ignored the string of curses that followed. His gaze was still hefted on the holo-screen.

“We had to abort the mission to cut the tremendous losses our fleet has suffered.”

The comm ended, the hideous face vanished. Kylo was trembling with rage, his hands curled into fists at his sides.

The audacity to leave him behind, take control over his fleet… his hands shook with anticipation. The moment his burning blade would slash through the general’s throat couldn’t come soon enough. Now he just had to locate his fleet.

***

**[Jakku]**

Even if she dreaded what lay ahead of her on this journey, Rey felt happiness and relief surge through her as she steered the small ship out of the hangar. For the first time in three months, she was flying again.

“WHOOOOO! Finally!” she cheered. Oh, how she’d missed this feeling.

“Don’t have too much fun”, Poe chided through the comm, but she happily ignored him. The joyful feeling would subside soon enough.

***

It was funny how things never went according to the plans you made. When Rey had left Jakku on a rush with Finn and BB8 to escape the First Order hunting them, she’d sworn to return as soon as BB8 was back with the Resistance, sure that none of this was her business. Then, having escaped Starkiller Base – or rather, being rescued by her new friends – and the discovery of her abilities to use the Force, Rey hadn’t even thought of going back anymore. After Kylo – Ben – had told her the truth about her parents, there had been no reason to go back. There was nothing left on Jakku to come back for.

But at last, she was standing in the place she had always refused to call her home. Nothing had changed. Not that she’d expected it, anyway. She however, had changed. She wasn’t the girl anymore who had waited for a family that would never come back to her. Though she might have left Jakku behind, the feeling of isolation and loneliness still clung to her like the desert sand you never really got off your hair and clothes.

Contrary to Leia’s advice, Rey had insisted on going alone, because some things needed to be dealt with on your own. As she made her way through Niima Outpost and the few miserable, meagre tents scattered around the dunes, she came to regret the decision to even refuse BB8’s company Poe had offered. It would have been nice to make the way with the always gleefully beeping droid. As she continued her walk towards the place where the nameless dead were buried, her eyes took in all the poverty and misery she had escaped, as well as all those poor souls who never would, and tried to swallow down her pity. She was here for a reason, and she wanted to be done with it as soon as possible. She called the green forests of Commenor to her mind as she tied the scarf a little tighter over her nose and mouth, remembering the smells of pine needles and moss and wet ferns to blend out the smells of sweat and rot that inhabited this place.

The fear of being recognised faded slowly away from her; people here were much too caught up in their own misery. Nobody threw a second glance at her, just like it had always been.

The sun was searing, turning the sand below into fields of dusty fire. She was still accustomed to the heat, she noticed as she paused and took a long swig from her flask. As she had finally reached the sticks in the ground that marked the pauper’s graveyard. The fields of lost souls, people on Jakku called them, and it was an adequate name. Those who found their last resting-place here had no names, no loved ones, no one to mourn them.

 _I would have been one of them, had I died here_ , Rey thought. Another nameless corpse nobody mourned. The realization had hit her like a punch in the gut.

“All that time, I could have escaped this place instead of waiting for people that sold me for more booze”, she choked out.

The things she’d seen and felt now, the rain and green leaves and forests and lakes… she could have discovered all of it so much sooner. But she had stayed and even after having left with the Falcon all those months ago, she had planned on coming back into the captivity she had sentenced herself to. Rey suddenly felt sick, her knees giving in and she sank into the hot sands. She pulled off the scarf to get some air, but the suffocating feeling remained.

She always knew Kylo had told her the truth, but the full gravity of it had hit her only now that she had seen it with her own eyes. How could she ever think someone cared enough for her to come back to this hellhole of a planet when they had left her in the first place?

Sobs were wracking her body and the sand beneath her hands was leaving blisters on her skin. Rey couldn’t feel any of it; all she could feel was the grief, the loss of the years she had wasted – and rage.

“So, you finally decided to let the past die”, his calm voice echoed right in front of her.

***

**[Somewhere in space]**

The sun was setting when Kylo finally made it back to his stolen ship. He hadn’t been able to get to know the whereabouts of the First Order Fleet. It seemed to have vanished into thin air – it felt like he had asked around casually in about every single pub, tavern and shop in this whole city. Nothing.

In the meantime, it had dawned to him that Hux and Bright were hiding the Fleet and themselves deliberately. Good, he thought. They were still afraid of him, hopefully trembling in fear that he was still alive and would cut them to ribbons when he finally found them. He relished the thought, but it didn’t solve the problem at hand.

With a scream of rage slammed his fist into the ship’s wall, the punch reverberating through his whole body. The same moment his fist hit the metal he felt an emotion through the Bond that mirrored his own: rage. It was undoubtedly Rey’s rage, mingled with grief and despair. What had happened to put her into that kind of wrath? As soon as it had started, the feeling ebbed again, the Bond returned to silence. 

He closed his eyes and reached out through the Force, to get a glimpse at her as he had done a few nights ago, when her nightmares had prevented her from blocking him out and her was able to see her for a split second. He wondered what those nightmares were about, but every time she woke with a gasp, he felt her fear through their connection.

A sudden, booming voice hurtled him out of his thoughts.

 **You still need help, boy**.

It sounded amused. The shivers ran up and down Kylo’s spine at Plagueis’ call.

“My answer won’t change. I won’t do your dirty work”, he retorted firmly. “Go and haunt someone who’s ready to listen and leave me alone.” His voice sounded strong this time; more resolute than he felt in presence of the dead Sith Lord’s voice.

 **Like the little scavenger you’re connected to through the Force?** , Plagueis chuckled. Cold terror shot through Kylo, completely different to the one he’d felt the first time Plagueis had called to him. This special kind of terror he only felt if somebody threatened Rey, he realized. Kylo remained silent, but his mind was racing.

He knew he couldn’t find Rey through the Bond – he had tried to do so on multiple occasions. But Plagueis seemed to have no body, and an evil spirit who could wield the Force…

**You seem stressed at the thought. Maybe you’ll listen more closely, now.**

“The girl doesn’t matter to me.”

 **Of course. Nothing does, am I right?** That creepy laughter again.

**I’ll help you with this one – think of it as a gift to convince you of my trustworthiness. The First Order is currently staying in the Yavin-System. Do with that information as you see fit and think about my offer again.**

“You think I would trust this information? Because you’ve got the sudden desire to be altruistic?” It had gotten easier to talk back to him, Kylo noticed. There wasn’t anything a bodiless voice could do to harm him; physically, at least. The answer never came.

 _“Your situation is getting weirder and weirder, kiddo. Even for a Skywalker, you’ve reached a whole new level.”_ For the first time since his uncle had started haunting him, Kylo was glad to hear Luke’s voice. It was a welcome distraction from the recent encounter with Plagueis.

“How dangerous is he?”

_“I don’t know. But as far as I can tell, nobody ever managed to come back from the dead. Plagueis only avoided dying in the first place. But once you’re dead, you won’t come back.”_

“But, he can’t find her?”

 _“If I didn’t know better_ , Luke chimed gleefully, _I would think you still care for her.”_

“Fine. I’ll find the answer myself. What good are you if all you do is utter nonsense and sarcastic commentaries”, he spat.

 _“I find myself rather entertaining”_ , his uncle quipped.

A gust of hot air hit him out of nowhere, and Kylo blinked against the blinding light that accompanied it. When his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness lighting up the interior of the stolen freighter, he could see her huddled form on the ground a few feet away. He’d already turned on auto-pilot, now he closed the distance between them in the small cockpit.

She hadn’t noticed him yet. Her three little buns had come lose in the hot wind still blowing through the freighter’s small cockpit, playing with the scraps of her garb which had turned light brown with – was that sand?

Kylo’s heart sank as he saw the silent sobs wracking her body.

“So, you finally decided to let the past die”, he guessed as her emotions started flooding through him through the bond; emotions he knew all too well himself: loss, grief, the realization of having been abandoned.

Rey averted her eyes so he couldn’t see the tears streaking her face. He knew they were there, anyway. Kylo kneeled beside her and only at the last moment, he caught himself from putting a soothing hand on her back. He put it down on the metal floor beside him, instead.

“I know how this feels”, he quietly told her, not even sure if she was listening.

“You don’t know _anything_ ”, she spat, finally looking at him through bloodshot eyes. “Your parents loved you.”

He shrugged. “They abandoned me nevertheless.”

For a while, he could only kneel beside her helplessly while she continued to weep, and every single one of her sobs sent a jolt of pain through him that almost felt physical.

“I didn’t want to believe you”, Rey finally blurted out. “I did, but I didn’t want to.”

“I never lied to you. You could use this pain, you know? It makes you stronger in the Force if you use it as a channel.”

The moment he had voiced it, he knew it was the most stupid thing he could have said. He could feel through the Bond how much she despised him at that moment.

“Still, all you care about are my powers. I’d rather _die_ than stand on your side.” Her voice was shaking, this time from rage.

His face fell.

“You’ll never find me”, she added in a hiss that sent more waves of disgust through the open Bond.

He gently pulled out a grain of sand that had got caught in his own midnight strands moving in the hot breeze and looked at it in quiet contemplation.

“You’re on Jakku.”

The last thing he saw before the Bond closed was the look of utter horror that crossed her tear streaked, sand-crusted face.

***

_“I don’t know if somebody ever told you, kiddo”,_ Luke’s voice floated soberly through the air _, “but you really have got your fathers talent for specifically finding the most inadequate thing to say in any situation and then blurting it out.”_

“Why did I say that?”, he groaned, face in his hands. He was too absorbed in his own worries to reply to Luke’s commentary.

_“I may be dead but I’m still better at picking up on social cues than you are. And I’ve lived as a hermit on an isolated island for twenty years.”_

“I’m an idiot.”

_“Yes, you are.”_

“And now she’s scared, too.”

_“Absolutely.”_

“Maybe even trying something stupid because now she thinks I’ll hunt her down.”

 _“I bet she is”_ , Luke agreed again.

“CAN YOU JUST SHUT IT. I need to think.”

 _“Yes”_ , Luke retorted, “ _if only you had a ship to fly to Jakku and apologize to her_.” The sarcasm was practically dripping from the metallic walls of the cockpit, but Kylo ignored it as he was deep in his thoughts again.

“I need to get back my First Order”, Kylo told himself and gathered himself, getting up from the floor.

 _“Oh, kiddo”_ , Luke sighed quietly. _“You’re killing me all over again.”_

***

**[Somewhere in space]**

Somewhere on a small, old ship, half covered in blood-red dust, a loyal droid was typing a message, the blinking light on his chest throwing little blue dots on the metal walls.

His master had been furious to be bodiless, _again_. But that could be used as a weapon as well. From where he was, Darth Plagueis could use the streams of the Force to float across space, being carried by its currents like a log in a river, able to see and feel other beings who were lightyears away. Doing so, he was also able to locate them, wherever they were – the was no place in the Galaxy that could be hidden from the Force. That’s how Plagueis finally found the girl.

All 11-4D had to do was type some coordinates into the out-of-date communication systems of the spaceship and send the message across the galaxy to the man who would hopefully know what to do with it.

The comm-message seared through space; lightyears crossed in only a few short parsecs. It arrived at its destination, sending some lights blinking which alerted the Tech observing the Ship’s comm systems.

“A Message for General Hux”, he called out into the control room.

A Lieutenant who still looked like a youngling turned toward the Tech. “Who sent it?”

“It’s anonymous”, the Tech replied. “Shall I forward it anyway, Lieutenant Mitaka?”

The Lieutenant contemplated for a moment, then gave a shrug.

“Forward it immediately. Maybe it’s important.”

General Hux had made it clear that wanted to be immediately informed should there be news about Supreme Leader Ren, and Mitaka didn’t want to take any risks wit anonymous secret messages.

***

**[Jakku]**

_He knows where I am. He knows it_. The thought was circling in Rey’s head on repeat. How could she be so _stupid_ , letting her guard down, alerting the enemy…

“Keep it together”, she scolded herself. It was time to wipe the tears from her cheeks, gather her wits and make it off this damned planet before Kylo could alert his First Order and hunt her down.

She rose and began stumbling through the sands back towards Niima Outpost, where her ship was waiting.

How long had it been since the Bond had closed? Five minutes, at most. The question was how long would it take Kylo to start his ship and come for her? What would he do if he found her? The question had formed when she’d first learned of the bounty he had put on her head.

Rey knew she was slow; she wasn’t used to running through sand anymore. Her legs were burning, her lungs felt like they were burning, too and her throat was sore from sobbing. But still, there was no time to rest or take another sip from her flask.

The metal gateway to Niima Outpost finally appeared on the horizon. Just a few more minutes –

The punch hit her hard in the back. Rey plummeted to the ground, the searing hot sands leaving little burn marks where it touched her skin. She noticed that she’d forgotten to put she shawl back over her face, being too preoccupied to escape in time.

She rolled around to grab the blaster tied to her belt, but it was too late. The last thing Rey saw was the silhouette of her ship waiting in the distance, rippling in the shimmering hot air like a mirage. Then, something hit her on the head, and everything vanished into darkness.


	4. Chapter 4

The first thing Rey noticed as she was slowly coming to, was the piercing ache in the back of her head. The second thing was the darkness. For a few panicked moments she thought she’d gone blind, that the hit on her head had taken her eyesight. Then, she saw a thin line of light in front of her and realized that is was just dark. Where was she?

She sat up, her fingertips brushing the cool, metallic floor. She couldn’t feel anything else, so she crawled towards the sliver of light, ignoring the spinning in her head. Either the ground was really moving, or she had a concussion. She would put her money on the concussion.

“Kriffing Bantha Poodoo”, Rey cursed and stopped for a split second while a wave of nausea hit her.

It seemed as if the light was floating in through a gap in the wall, or rather a gap between the ground and a door of some sort.

She let her fingers wander over a smooth, cold surface and the slim grooves to its both sides. Yes, it _was_ a door. She was weak, but she could use the Force to open a door. Why hadn’t her captors thought about her ability to use the Force and escape? After all, by now the whole Galaxy knew about her, the last Jedi.

Rey closed her eyes, put her hands on the cold metal of the door and pushed against it with the Force. A blue light burst in front of her eyes as she was flung back through the cell with a jolt and hit the back wall – hard. For a moment, she saw little white lights exploding in her vision, then they subsided into darkness and Rey retched with a sudden burst of nausea. She had hit her head again. What in the stars had happened? She touched the back of her head, where the pain was strongest, and something warm and wet trickled over her fingers.

Rey paused, then did the only appropriate thing there was left to do in such a situation. She crawled back to the door and started to pound on it, spitting out a series of rather creative curses and insults at her captors. She hoped they were able to hear everything.

After a while, the splitting headache and dizziness got the best of her and she sunk against the door. The silence that now occupied the cell (she couldn’t exactly see if it _was_ a cell, but where else should she be?) was worse.

Rey closed her eyes and focused on the tug she felt in her chest and had identified as the Bond between her and Kylo on Ach To. But no matter how hard she screamed and raged at it through the Force, the Bond remained silent. Rey was sure he didn’t even notice her try to activate the connection. Maybe he’d found a way to block her, too.

He’d really done it. He had used her in her weakest moment to locate her and then he’d sent his subordinates to get her. The thought _hurt_. And now she wasn’t even able to confront him via their Bond. 

***

“Well done.” A smug smile had spread over Hux’s face as he dismissed the two men while keeping a safe distance from them. They were covered in soot and desert sand and emitted a rather unpleasant smell.

“Since I forwarded you the coordinates of the girl, the First Order will pay you only half of the bounty. Still a generous offer”, he added to nip any protests in the bud.

The Stormtroopers escorted the men out and Hux was left alone in the command room. He took his time to look out the glass façade, taking in the masses of Stardestroyers hovering in space. It was nearly his fleet, now. The Generals had believed him and Bright as they told them of the _tragic_ loss of Supreme Leader Ren. They’d wanted to believe it, anyway, and that was good enough. He just needed to make sure Ren wouldn’t find his way back if he was still alive.

When he’d read the anonymous message giving him the girl’s coordinates with the words _You got her, you got him,_ he couldn’t think of it as a joke. Whoever had sent the message, Hux owed them. A few million credits to express his gratitude wouldn’t hurt him once he was Supreme Leader.

Plus, he had finally captured the girl. He hadn’t believed Ren for a second that a filthy little scavenger could kill Snoke and his highly skilled guards on her own after knocking out Ren. There was something going on, and after three months of lying in wait, time was finally ripe to take matters into his own hands.

He would execute the girl and he would make certain that the whole of the Galaxy watched it, or – if Ren showed up again – maybe Hux could use her against him. To do so, he just needed to find one single piece of evidence for their collaboration.

No matter how things would go from this point, he was getting closer and closer to rule the Galaxy on his own. A sudden thought crossed his mind and he took out his comm device.

“Mitaka, any news about the surveillance in the throne room?”

“No, Sir”, the Lieutenant immediately replied. “A squad has searched the floating wreckage of the Supremacy, but the surveillance devices of the throne room couldn’t be found. It is most likely they were all destroyed in the Resistance’s Holdo-Manoeuvre. Maybe, we’re luckier with the surveillance from other parts of the wreckage.”

Hux considered this for a moment, examining his perfectly manicured fingernails. Except from Ren, there was nothing he loathed more than imperfection.

“Is there anything else, Sir?”, Mitaka asked.

“Yes. I want _all_ surveillance materials concerning our Supreme Leader Ren to be conveyed to me as soon as possible. It’s a most urgent matter.”

“Of course, Sir.”

Hux turned off the comm and continued to watch the Fleet behind the windowpanes. He would find out what exactly Ren had had to do with the filthy scavenger, and he would use it against him as a bargaining chip if Ren ever returned to the First Order. 

***

Typing in the coordinates to the Yavin system, still contemplating if he was running head-first into a trap to eliminate him for good, Kylo couldn’t take his thoughts off Plagueis’ threat against Rey.

Plagueis was able to find her in the Force, just as the ancient Sith Lord had found Kylo. But would he really try to use Rey? Kylo shook his head. Even if Plagueis tried and Rey had never heard the dead dark-sider’s story, she was too clever to get involved. He had to warn her through the Bond, though. The First Order could wait a few minutes longer.

Kylo closed his eyes, took a steadying breath and reached out with his heart. To him, the Bond always felt like a glowing thread of light. He had often tried to reach out, to see her, but her methods to block him were effective, for most of the time.

This time, though, something felt…different.

The last times he had tried to activate the Bond, he was able to _feel_ her presence on the other end when she blocked the connection, even if he couldn’t see her. But now, the other end somehow felt _empty_.

Fear gripped him.

“Luke?”, he asked into the empty space of the cockpit. “Luke, I need help.”

Still, no answer.

“Really? You’ve been haunting me for days and now that I need your help, you just _vanish_?”

Flying to Jakku wasn’t an option. If Plagueis’ hint to his fleet’s location was correct, Kylo couldn’t afford to lose any more time. He had to get to the Yavin-System before they switched location again. He punched the wall in frustration.

“LUKE!”

It was like screaming into a void.

***

Rey didn’t have any idea how long she had been in her cell. Nobody had come to see her yet, and there was no food or water. Her throat was sore, but she didn’t feel hungry, which meant she couldn’t have been here for more than a few hours.

As if on cue, she heard heavy footsteps outside the door, coming from several persons, and her heart skipped a few beats as she heard the scraping against the outside of the cell door. A screech, like metal on metal. She flinched at the sound.

The door swung open and a burst of light flooded into her cell. Rey squinted at the silhouettes in the doorway and tried to scramble backwards as they stepped towards her, but her back met the wall. There was nowhere to hide. When her eyes only slowly accustomed to the sudden brightness in the room after all those hours in the dark, Rey could make out their white-and-black uniforms. Stormtroopers. She wasn’t really surprised at the confirmation that she really _was_ Kylo’s captive, but it still felt like a betrayal. Which was ridiculous since they were enemies.

Before Rey could even think about using the Force, the soldiers had put shackles on her wrists and ankles. All she could do was glare. None of the Stormtroopers uttered a word, and they left as soon as they had come. She spat a few curses at their backs but gauged no reaction. The door shut behind them, and she was alone again in the darkness, the cold of her new shackles making her shiver.

*** 

Kylo had made the jump to the Yavin-System in only a few parsecs. As the blue streaks of hyperspace in front of the cockpit’s windows faded away and space opened again, he immediately knew Plagueis had told him the truth, which didn’t relieve his stress – it could still be a trap.

The complete fleet of the First Order was hovering in the space above the atmosphere of Yavin 4. Hundreds of grey and black Stardestroyers floated beside each other, like a flock of quiet birds frozen in the sky, throwing dark triangle-shaped shadows on the moon’s green and blue jungle-surface below. In the background, the huge red gas planet it orbited – Yavin – emitted a dim red glow.

Kylo steered his stolen freighter towards the Stardestroyer that floated nearest to him while he grabbed the ship’s comm to send a signal and test the waters.

“This is your Supreme Leader Ren calling.”

After a few minutes of silence, the comm crackled, just as Kylo was beginning to feel nervous, and a surprised voice called out: “Sir, we can see a small Corellian freighter in the distance. Is that the ship you are on?”

“Yes”, he confirmed. “I’m headed for the nearest of the Stardestroyers. Who am I talking to?”

“I’m Lieutenant Nyx, Sir. We’ll forward you the opening codes for the hangar via this signal”, the officer on the other end of the line offered, still with a tinge of surprise.

“What happened in the time of my absence?”, Kylo inquired after a moment of contemplation. He knew the officer would just tell him a lie if it really was a trap, but he had to ask.

“Supreme Leader, Sir, we were told of your failed mission and how the fleet lost your signal.”

Kylo could feel the Lieutenant’s fear and uncertainty through the comm. He nodded to himself.

“Don’t tell the Generals that I’m back”, he ordered. “Tell nobody. Or you’ll regret it.”

“Of course, Supreme Leader.”

*** 

Kylo had been right with his suspicions: Hux and Bright had acted on their own to get rid of him, and Lieutenant Nyx had told him the truth about the official version the rest of the First Order had been fed. Every surprised and distressed subordinate he had asked about the story as soon as he’d landed the freighter in the _Executioner_ ’s hangar had told him the exact same answer.

He must have looked dishevelled after the days in outer space, but nobody dared to stare at him; they still feared him. Good.

The silence on the command bridge as he entered was deafening, only interrupted by the beeping and droning of the monitors and tech.

He let his gaze wander menacingly over each and every person on the bridge. They all avoided his gaze.

“Lieutenant Nyx?”, he called out. A lanky guy with blond hair falteringly rose from his seat.

“Yes, Supreme Leader?” His voice was shaking.

“I want you to assemble every general, lieutenant and commander in our ranks in the command room on the _Finalizer_. Now.” He would make sure they all knew the cruel fate he had in store for traitors.

The Lieutenant saluted and scrambled away, relieved not to be in the same room as the Supreme Leader anymore.

“You”, Kylo pointed at another Lieutenant. “I need the names of the ships General Hux and General Bright reside on.”

*** 

Hux stretched out his arms over the back of the seat he was occupying for the last four hours, scanning the surveillance records of Ren on his holo-pad. Over three months’ worth of surveillance records and he’d found nothing out of the ordinary yet. It was like swimming though a lake full of waste. But Hux was sure something would turn up; he just had to look more closely. There was nothing to see in the training room, nothing in the conference room and there was no surveillance of Ren’s private quarters, of course. 

The only thing left to check was the surveillance of the hallways near Ren’s quarters. Before he could tap the holo to open the new folder of records, he halted. There was another set of data he must have missed before, but the title marked it as “elevator SP-403”. One of the elevators of the now destroyed Supremacy. It was _the_ elevator to Snoke’s throne room. Even before Hux opened the video, he knew in his heart that he’d hit the jackpot.

The video showed Ren with the shackled scavenger girl. Hux could ask her, or torture her, but he knew the girl wouldn’t tell him anything about the events in the throne room or the connection Hux suspected between Ren and the Resistance. He didn’t have the time. But this was so much better than anything the girl could have told him.

He smiled a very euphoric smile as he watched the girl take a step towards Ren on the screen and turned the volume up to her their words more clearly.

“I saw something, too”, Ren told her. It took Hux a few seconds to recognize it actually was Ren’s voice, because it held a softness that Hux never thought Ren was capable of.

“Rey, I saw you turn. I saw you stand by my side.”

It was getting even better. Ren and the scavenger did not only have an alliance – she meant something to him. And she was Hux’ captive! Suddenly, the message attached to the coordinates he’d got made a completely new sense: _You got her, you got him_. Of course! How could he be that dense and not see it sooner?! The elevator-surveillance record was truly a gift from the stars. All the weapons he needed to become Supreme Leader were at his hands now. 

With a crackle, his comm activated. It was Bright. He would need to get rid of Bright, too.

“Hux, Ren is back”, Bright told him. The General’s voice was shaking.

A crash sounded in the background, followed by a sound of a sliding door being forced open, metal screeching over metal.

“Supreme Leader- “, Hux heard the General mutter. Obviously, Ren had found Bright. Hux recognized the buzzing sound of a lightsaber in the background, and the last thing he heard until the comm ended with a crack were Bright’s screams. 

Panic surged through Hux. Ren was here. He had killed Bright and would be on his way to finish off Hux in a matter of minutes. But Bright’s dead was what had been on Hux’ agenda, anyway. Ren had done the dirty work for him.

Hux calmed a little as a plan formed in his head. Nobody except him and three lowly Stormtroopers knew that he’d captured the scavenger girl, which meant Ren didn’t know, either.

Yes, Ren didn’t know it yet, but Hux was on the high ground.

***

Kylo was breathing heavily as he stood over Bright’s smouldering remains, raising a gloved hand to wipe a smear of the General’s blood from his cheek. Now, he just had to find Hux. Unfortunately, Hux was on another ship and it seemed as if Bright had used his last moments to contact the other General – surely not to warn him, but maybe to ask his accomplice for help. It didn’t matter; Hux knew that Kylo was back and the read-headed goblin would try to escape. Kylo had to hurry.

Nobody had put up a fight to assist Bright. Kylo was sure not everyone of the Generals had believed Hux and Bright’s fairy-tale about the failed mission, but they all resented him being Supreme Leader, so why should they have protested? But they were all spineless and afraid of him, too, and after seeing the fate that had met Hux and Bright, they would follow him again. They already did, bowing to him, hurrying out of his way as he strode towards the hangar with heavy steps to get into his Tie Whisperer and pursue Hux.

For a brief moment, Kylo thought about Plagueis’ words: you don’t need fear, you need an ally. Well, it turned out that Plagueis had been wrong, after all. He would execute Hux, and then he would try to learn more about Plagueis and what the dead dark sider could really do.

***

Rey had come to understand that the freezing handcuffs had a similar effect on her as the metallic walls themselves: she could feel how her powers were fading away more and more by the minute, how she wasn’t only blocked out of the Bond to Kylo but of the Force itself, as well.

How was that possible? She racked her brain if she’d ever read of a technology like this in one of the books but found nothing. All those weeks of studying the ancient Jedi texts, all the knowledge she’d gained, and still it was no use to her now that she needed it most.

A cry of frustration built on the top of her lungs the same moment she heard the screech of the door again. This time, as it swung open, she forced her eyes to stay open, prepared for the blinding brightness flooding the cell again.

At first, she thought the silhouette in the doorway was Kylo and her heart stuttered; but as the man stepped forward, Rey saw it wasn’t Kylo.

The man was also clad in black, but that’s where the similarities ended. He had a sickly pallor, red hair and a face like a tree goblin from Danchaf. His pointed features were distorted into an expression she couldn’t identify – maybe joy, maybe anger, maybe a mixture of both. It didn’t matter, anyway, since neither his anger nor his joy would do her any good.

“The filthy little scavenger”, he purred. “You might wonder why you can’t use your abilities.” He waved a hand at her cowering form on the floor. “You might feel weak, and exhausted, and tired…”

She didn’t answer.

“Get her to the upper levels. Onto the control bridge”, Hux ordered the two Stormtroopers that had appeared behind him in the doorway.

A cold shiver ran down Rey’s spine. The troopers caught her by the upper arms and began to drag her away.

“How can you be so sure those shackles will hold me?”, Rey spat at the redheaded man in her desperation as they passed him.

She was met with a smug smile. “This magnetic field technology already helped to catch and shackle Obi Wan Kenobi”, he replied drily. “I’m sure I will put up with a filthy little desert rat.”

*** 

Lightyears away, in a cave system underground, Leia was prancing around the control room restlessly. Night had arrived and Rey hadn’t returned yet. Leia knew that something had gone terribly wrong – she didn’t feel it in the Force, but with her heart.

The control room was nearly empty this time, except from a few people on the night’s shift, watching the radar holos to detect any possible dangers to the new hideout. Poe was with them, and he threw her a glance over his shoulder.

“She could be late for other reasons”, he tried to calm her. But Leia could see his own concern written all over his face.

“Anything new from Finn, Rose and Chewie?”

Poe nodded. “They just landed on Takodana to bring the kids to Maz. They’ll be back with us soon.”

Leia nodded and Poe understood the cue for him to leave her alone again.

When Leia turned around to resume her nervous pacing, she abruptly froze in mid-movement.

Right in front of her stood the Force Ghost of her brother. His form was transparent, the rims of his silhouette radiating in a faint blue luminescence. But it was undeniably Luke. Leia turned around, but none of the others had noticed anything. They were staring at the radars in concentration, all fighting their own exhaustion.

“Luke”, Leia finally breathed. He gave her a sad smile and opened his arms for an embrace. It felt like hugging water.

“You’ve changed your hair”, he replied with a gesture towards her braided bun as she pulled away to look at him.

“I’m full of joy to see you, but I’m dreading the reason for your visit”, she told him.

Luke nodded. “Ben needs you, Leia.”

“You’ve seen him? Did you… did you talk to him?”

A lump was forming in her throat.

“I talked to him. There is still too much darkness in his heart, but I could see something else, too. On Crait, I told you nobody was ever really gone, and I was right. There is still hope for him.”

A stray tear ran over Leia’s cheek as she processed the meaning of her brother’s words. Luke’s ghost made a step forward and took her wrinkled hand in his glowing ones.

“Darth Plagueis is back”, Luke continued. “I don’t know what he plans, but he’s still weakened and bodiless. I don’t know when or how- “

It felt as if the ground had trembled beneath Leia’s feet. She stumbled towards one of the stone benches in the corner of the cave and sunk onto it.

Flashes of her own memory flitted through her vision. It had started when she was pregnant with Ben. She could feel his light, but there had always been something else, a vein of darkness shooting through him. Leia had always thought it belonged to Ben, but now she wasn’t so sure anymore. Was that even possible?

Her whole body trembled.

“Did you warn him?”, she asked, her voice only a broken whisper.

“I did. I’m on the other side, Leia, I tried to learn more about what was happening with Plagueis, though I couldn’t find any answers there. I also tried to guide him back, steer him a little more towards the light, but he wouldn’t hear any of it. You’re his mother, though. If you call to him, he’ll listen. I’m sure of it now.”

Leia nodded. She knew exactly what she had to do.

Luke’s ghost gave her hand a single squeeze; his eyes were clouded with sorrow.

“I will see you on the other side”, he told her, and vanished into thin air; only a faint blue glow remained in the air where he’d stood before slowly faded away as well.

***

“Ben.” It was nothing more than a whisper, but he could hear it clear as day in his head, felt it resonate in his soul.

His gloved hand froze over the steering lever of his Tie Whisperer and time seemed to stop. It was his mother’s voice. He hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Ben, you need to listen to me. I love you; I always have. I’s time for you to come home.”

With that, she was gone. The presence Kylo had felt, left; time was starting to flow again. His heart was beating so hard it felt as if his ribs were breaking.

But his gaze was on the Stardestroyer that hovered directly in front of him. Hux’ Stardestroyer. He needed to finish what he’d started. The light he had felt in his soul was extinguished again. This – the First Order, the rule over the Galaxy – this was what he was meant to be. Maybe there had been a way for him to return home; but he’d shut that door forever the moment his blade had pierced his father’s heart. He was long past the point of no return.

Kylo increased his ship’s speed.

***

Hux couldn’t have been more excited about how things had turned out.

The girl was chained to the floor in front of him. Now that she had finally stopped cursing like a Bantha, she just stared to the ground beneath her knees, her gaze dull and unfocused. The cuffs worked way better that he’d reckoned. Hux crinkled his nose at the sand that trickled out of her dirty garb onto the polished black steel tiles. He would have to send for a cleaning droid later, to mop up the sand that would soon mix with the girl’s own blood.

The stormtrooper right behind her held the white steel axe with the electric blade that was only used for the cruel execution of traitors and Resistance fighters. Which were the same, really. The girl hadn’t even flinched at the searing flashes reflecting from the unblemished, mirror-like floor.

Heavy steps echoed through the hallway in front of him, coming nearer. Hux nodded toward the troopers surrounding him. He’d ordered a few dozen guards onto the bridge – all of them loyal to him – to be sure their number would suffice to take out Ren. All he would have to do now was wait for his trap to snap shut.

***

As Kylo strode through the empty halls of Hux’ Stardestroyer, he felt like walking through one of the ghost towns the First Order had left on the planets that openly collaborated with the Resistance.

He had reckoned a trap. Of course, the soldiers on Hux’ ship were loyal to their General first. That was the one thing he’d always feared about the General. But the rage was burning through his veins, making him even stronger now.

He turned around one last corner to enter the ship’s command bridge – and froze at the sight that had opened in front of him.

Dozens of Stormtroopers, fully armed and ready to strike, surrounded him. In the middle of all this, Hux towered as if he was Supreme Leader already, his eyes gleaming with hatred and triumph.

To his feet, shackled and near unconscious, crouched Rey.

***

“I brought you a gift, Supreme Leader”, Hux chimed, opening his arms in a mock greeting.

Kylo was still staring at Rey’s cowering form.

He raised his hand to Force-choke Hux, throw him into the next wall and end his disgusting existence, but the General only gave him a cold smile as the Stormtrooper behind Rey raised the executioner’s axe over her head, while a few others of the surrounding Stormtroopers raised their blasters at him.

“I’d recommend you avoid doing anything stupid and listen to me for once”, Hux snarled. “Raise your hands so that I can see them. If you only _think_ about igniting that lightsaber of yours, the desert rat here will be dead in a split second.”

Kylo did as he was told; he didn’t really have any other choice. As he stretched out his hands, his gaze still glued to her, Rey finally raised her head.

A shocked gasp escaped his throat as he took in her sight. Her face was still crusted with sand, her eyes red-rimmed, and there was a streak of blood on her forehead. Her gaze was dull, and she didn’t seem to recognize him.

“What have you done?”, he growled at Hux.

The General chuckled. “Nothing yet. She’s weakened from the Force-blocking cuffs, that’s all. For now,” he added with a smug smile that Kylo wanted to punch out of his face. At least he knew now what had happened to her, the reason he hadn’t been able to reach her. Rey had needed him, and he had abandoned her. Kylo suddenly felt sick. Had she tried to call out to him for help through the Bond, not knowing the magnetic field of her shackles would have prevented that? Or did she think it had been his own command to catch her after he’d found out her location on Jakku?

Kylo and Hux stared at each other in silent hatred, the only audible sound was the buzzing of electricity from the executioner’s axe.

Finally, Hux raised his hand to show Kylo something that gleamed in the white light of the wall panels. It was a holo-pad.

“This is the surveillance video from the elevator on the day our Supreme Leader was killed.” Hux raised his voice as he declared it so that everyone on the bridge was able to hear him while he slowly started backing away towards the second exit right behind him.

“I will now bring this surveillance footage to the other Generals you have already so thoughtfully assembled for me and show them the piece of evidence for your treason on our Supreme Leader Snoke. They might be spineless and frightened, but seeing this, there will be nobody left on this ship – not even one single person or droid – that would take any more orders from you. Not one.”

Kylo agreed with him – they would kill him immediately. He knew what Hux was planning. 

If he pursued Hux, he could kill him and destroy the evidence for his own betrayal and his connection with Rey, and Rey would die at the hands of the executioner behind her. If he tried to free Rey, on the other hand, Hux would get away with the surveillance video and Kylo would never have a chance to be the Supreme Leader again.

It was a simple choice and a clever move from Hux. Either lose the power to rule the Galaxy for the slim chance to rescue Rey, or he became Supreme Leader again through killing Hux and paid the price of losing Rey – forever.

His gaze finally caught Rey’s absent one, but a gleam of recognition flicked in her eyes before they were clouded by fear once more. Fear of him, he knew – he could feel it seeping through her side of the Bond now, just as it had that day in Snoke’s throne room.

Kylo had made his way back to reclaim the throne of the Supreme Leader. The memory of the last time he’d risked everything for her by killing Snoke was more vivid than ever in his mind. How she’d left him lying on the ground to save her friends. History was repeating, and this time, he could make things right, he had the power to change the outcome. A second chance to right his wrongs.

Kylo knew that the choice had been waiting for him all this time, anyway. He knew what he had to do. Deep in his heart, he had always known what to do, since the day she’d left him in Snoke’s throne room. His eyes were following Hux’s every step as the General started fleeing from the bridge. Kylo’s lightsaber was in his hands in a heartbeat, the red blade flaring to life.

He’d always thought he knew exactly what he wanted – until he had it. It had turned out that the only thing he ever really wanted was to be with Rey. 

***

Kylo knew he had to act fast if he wanted to save her. There were at least thirty to forty stormtroopers to the left side of the room, blocking the exit Hux had just escaped through, and directly behind Rey, still holding the axe above her head, was another one.

There was no time left for Kylo to work out an elaborate escape plan; now, he’d be going with the flow and pray to the Force and all the stars above that it would work.

In a split second, Kylo stretched out his hands, reached out with the Force, snatched the executioner’s axe out of the – rather surprised – stormtrooper’s grip and let the buzzing electric blade sear down on Rey, cutting the shackles that tied her to the floor with an unerring accuracy. At the same time, he reached out to his left with the other hand, gave a hearty pull through the Force and bent down one of the black steel panels in the ceiling. The panel fell down with an ear-shattering clatter, effectively blocking the rest of the gathered stormtroopers behind it.

Kylo’s gaze finally caught Rey’s as she rose from the floor, the shackles around her wrists and ankles no longer restraining her.

Then, hell broke loose.

***

The moment Rey’s shackles fell away and clattered to the floor, the freezing feeling subsided from her bones and she lifted her gaze to meet Kylo’s dark eyes as she rose.

She had no weapon, she realized as she stumbled up from the ground, the power returning to her tingling body.

The same moment the thought rushed through her head, Kylo – no, he wasn’t Kylo anymore, he was Ben – seemed to notice as well. Without hesitation, he flung his own lightsaber towards her and she caught it mid-air, turning towards the panel Ben had torn out of the ceiling. He’d given her his weapon. Which left him without any means of defence.

The panel wouldn’t block the troopers any longer; the black metal had already begun to melt, glowing red where the wave of blaster bolts from the stuck troopers hit. Already, the first ones were scrambling toward the two, through the gaps of molten metal. Rey had knocked a few of them to the ground with Ben’s red saber, but there were more and more soldiers coming at her.

Ben reached out again, this time tearing out a much smaller panel out of the nearest wall, which floated towards him. He gripped it like a shield.

Blasterfire was opened all around them, the beams going down like a hailstorm.

Ben ducked, pulling Rey with him.

“You’re late”, she quipped, but she couldn’t hide the small smile forming on her face. Ben’s heart skipped a beat.

“I know”, he told her, but Rey was already dashing out into the hallway alongside him, the rest of the stormtroopers on their heels, firing a storm of blaster bolts at their backs.

Ben whirled around to block a few of the shots with the wall-panel he was still holding, the rest he froze mid-air with the Force. The more bolts he froze, the more he could feel the strain of the effort already, and the steel panel was quickly heating up from the laser bolts that had struck it. He let it clatter to the ground.

“Rey, you need to _run_! I’ll hold them up!”, he shouted again as they rounded the next corner, but she shook her head.

“Not without you.”

With that, she was at his side again, pressing the buzzing red lightsaber back into his free hand while grabbing two of the trooper’s blasters she pulled towards her with the Force.

Ben and Rey stood in a T-shaped crossroads of hallways now, with stormtroopers sprinting towards them from both sides; the only protection from the blaster-bolts that hailed down on them was Ben’s force-freeze.

Rey whirled around, searching for anything to use against the troopers. Ben’s and her strength wouldn’t last long if they kept freezing bolts and pulling out panels at this rate.

Her gaze finally landed on another one of the wall panels on their right, full of blinking buttons. Where there were buttons, there usually were doors or something else they controlled.

She aimed her blaster and the shot hit home; little sparks were flying out of the panel and – thank the stars! – the hallway to their right was sealed shut by a pair of robust sliding steel doors, right before the mob of stormtroopers could pass through to meet them.

That left only one hallway open, and their pursuers – at least about twenty of them were left – were only a few feet away by now.

With one last effort, Ben grabbed Rey’s arm and pulled her down with him while letting go of the frozen bolts that rushed on and zoomed above their heads into the empty corridor behind them. Simultaneously, they rose again and carried on into the corridor, Ben a little behind her, blocking the laser shots with the blade of his saber, with whirring and buzzing sounds every time he hit one.

The two of them bolted around the next corner and stopped dead as they saw the mob of stormtroopers waiting for them at the end of the hallway. They were surrounded from every possible direction.

“Any ideas?”, Rey panted. The troopers behind them would be around the corner in a few heartbeats; their heavy footsteps were nearing while the mob ahead was already rushing towards them. Ben continued to block the next load of blaster bolts with his blade while Rey fired back with her two blasters.

“Actually, yes”, Ben replied and did something he never tried before: he sent a single thought down their Bond.

Rey glanced at him in surprise, then complied, shooting another bolt at a spot in the wall next to her. Another shower of sparks, and a small panel swung open beside them. Rey climbed through, Ben followed behind her, and the panel shut again. Rey used the Force to bend the metal of the entrance in order to block it so that the troopers couldn’t follow them.

Suddenly, it was pitch-black, the only light was the red glow coming from Ben’s still ignited lightsaber. They had fled into one of the tech-shafts. Rey couldn’t even hear the stormtroopers outside in the hallway behind; the only sounds in the narrow shaft were the buzzing of Ben’s saber, their breathless panting and her own blood rushing through her ears.

She turned her head. Ben had more problems to fit into the slim space.

“What now? Do you have a ship?”, she panted.

“Not anymore”, Ben replied, his breath tickling her neck. She shivered.

“But if we just follow this shaft, we’ll come out near the walls with the escape pods. You’re already familiar with them, I believe”, he added with a huff, reminding her of her escape from Snoke’s ship.

“You want to discuss that now?”, she retorted as they shuffled along the slim passageway. Rey heard him chuckle behind her.

“What happened to my family’s lightsaber, by the way? Did Hux take it when he caught you?”, Ben asked.

Rey could already see the contours of the exit at the end of the shaft in the lightsaber’s blaze.

“Still split in two.”

“WHAT?”, he gasped.

“It split in two when we fought over it in the throne room”, she shrugged, shuffling further towards the exit, “don’t you remember?”

No, Ben didn’t remember.

“It was a family heirloom”, he hissed, but they’d reached the doorway already and Rey didn’t reply.

They both knew they were likely already awaited by the next round of stormtroopers trying to kill them.

Rey used the Force to carefully slide the slim doorway open and peered through the narrow gap through which light flooded into the shaft. At least another dozen stormtroopers waited right in front of the exit, their backs towards them. 

With a sideways glance at Rey, Ben raised his hand in their direction, Rey following his lead as she recognized what he wanted to do.

Simultaneously, they used the Force to push the troopers away from their exit, sending a few of them tumbling to the ground. 

Rey and Ben jumped out into the hallway.

“There!”, Ben shouted and pointed at the far wall at the end of the corridor. Rey didn’t have to ask; she could see the escape pods embedded in the walls.

Only a few steps separated them from their escape.

By the time the troopers came to their feet again, Ben had knocked down a few of them, while Rey had hit another few with their blasters. Still, there were too many, and they could hear reinforcement sprinting towards them through the neighbouring hallways.

Suddenly, Rey felt something through their Bond, and at the same time, Ben gasped in pain. A suffocating fear to lose him spread through her. No. She couldn’t lose him.

“What happened?”, Rey screamed, still fighting with teeth and claws.

“Broke some ribs”, Ben croaked, his pain searing through their connection.

 _I can still run. Go! I’m right behind you!_ , he shouted at her through the Bond.

Neither Ben nor Rey looked back as they made the final run to the wall with the escape pods.

Having arrived, Ben threw her his lightsaber again while he began to type in some code to open the pod in front of them, winching in pain with every movement.

Rey was standing with her back to him, blocking the hailstorm of blaster fire as well as possible, tearing out another wall panel as she’d seen Ben do it to use it as a shield.

It worked pretty well – until the mass of laser beams that had hit made the metal burst; at the same time the panel exploded in Rey’s grip, the first stormtrooper arrived only a few feet ahead of her.

“REY! NO!” Ben’s scream sounded muffled and far away somehow, as if she was underwater.

Pain clouded Rey’s senses as her knees gave in and she sank to the floor. Something cold and sharp had struck her, right between the upper ribs. Before she could hit the ground, Rey could feel Ben’s arms closing around her softly, holding her against him.

Her vision was clouding, as she searched for Ben’s dark eyes and tried to take a breath, but somehow her lungs didn’t comply. She coughed, light red blood spilling out of her mouth onto the black steel tiles. The world faded into a blinding white light.

***

Ben spun but his broken ribs slowed him down too much. He saw it all happening as if time itself had frozen like one of the laser blasts he’d stopped: the bursting panel in Rey’s hands, huge splinters of metal shooting into every direction.

“REY! NO!”, he screamed in anguish as one of those metal splinters sunk deep into her chest. 

Rey turned to him, her features slowly contorting in anguish as she searched for his gaze. He was at her side in the blink of a second, sliding over the blood that pooled onto the ground. Rey’s blood.

Even though it felt as if fire seared through his own broken ribs, Ben caught her in his arms. He stared down at her. That wasn’t happening. That couldn’t be happening.

In front of them, the nearest Stormtrooper’s windpipe was mashed by Ben’s Force-grip before the man’s dead body hit the ground.

“No, no, no, no”, he whispered. Tears were streaming down his face.

He could hear the footsteps of the remaining Stormtroopers coming towards them. They had only seconds left to escape. Ben typed in a random row of coordinates to program the escape pod’s destination – away, just away from this place. He held Rey’s lifeless form close to him as he jumped into the escape pod.

The pod’s hatch began to shut the same moment the first few Stormtroopers rounded the corner and began to fire their blasters.

One of the green bolts struck his collarbone, but he ignored the pain.

With a jolt, the pod came off its mounting in the Stardestroyer’s wall, catapulting them deep into space.

Something hit the pod, shaking it, and the single light on the low rounded ceiling died, leaving them in a semi-darkness that was only lit by the little buttons blinking on the control panel.

Ben was huddled on the ground, clutching Rey to his chest and sobbing into her hair that had freed itself from the three little buns during the fight against Hux’ soldiers.

He raised his head so that Rey could breathe more freely, his hot tears spilling on her once-white garb that was now soaked through with her blood.

Ben tugged a few lose strands of brown hair behind her ear, his other hand never leaving hers. Then, he closed his eyes and reached out through the Bond. He felt her, but the feeling was like water rippling through his fingers; he couldn’t get a grip on her.

 _“She is dying.”_ Luke was back, his voice was dark and brittle with grief.

“NO”, Ben sobbed, concentrating harder. But as he opened his eyes to see her hazel ones one last time, her gaze was dull and unseeing, the light in her eyes had vanished. He couldn’t feel her pulse anymore under the soft skin of her wrist.

“REY!” She couldn’t hear him anymore.

The Bond didn’t quit to exist, but the other end of it was empty, a void that could never be filled again, the pain of that feeling made him gasp in agony. It felt as if someone had cut his soul into pieces. Ben had never thought that emptiness could hurt so much.

***

“There is still a way to safe her, Ben.”

It was his mother’s voice.

Ben raised his head as he heard it. Rey’s blood had dried in his black strands. The gaze in his dark eyes was empty.

“Mother.” His voice sounded broken and dead.

Leia kneeled beside him, her hand folding over his, but he couldn’t feel the touch. It was a Force projection, just like the one Luke had used on Crait.

“How?”, he whispered. “Tell me how to safe her, mother.”

 _“You know how to do it, Ben.”_ That was Luke. _“Use the Force. She’s still bound to you, in a connection like life itself.”_

Realization dawned on Ben. Of course. He nodded.

“I will die”, Ben realized, but the thought of dying was nothing compared to the anguish of living without her.

 _“Yes”_ , Luke’s voice confirmed, _“you most likely will.”_

“You’re not alone, Ben”, Leia’s voice echoed, her projection still kneeling on the ground beside her son, the two of them finally together, for one last time. His mother and uncle were with him in his last moments.

Ben closed his eyes and felt something he didn’t think he’d ever felt before. Peace. What better way was there to go than saving the woman he loved?

Maybe, things could have been different when he’d come with her instead of becoming the new Supreme Leader. He had to have all he thought he’d ever wanted to realise the only thing he’d ever wanted was to be with Rey.

Ben had wanted to give her the Galaxy, his heart, _everything_ ; now he’d make sure to give her the last thing he could give. His own life.

He placed his hand over the place where her heart should beat, then concentrated on the Bond. He found it. The light was out, the glow had subsided, but the string that bound their souls together remained.

“We are with you”, his mother whispered. “You’re not alone, Ben. I promise.”

Ben focused on the light inside his own chest and started to push it through the bond, giving Rey his own life force. The metal splinter that had lodged in her chest clattered to the ground as the deep wound in her began to close.

***

At the same time that Rey opened her eyes in an escape pod floating through space, Leia’s closed forever, lightyears away in an underground cave system, as her body faded, and she became one with the Force.

***

Rey woke with a start. The first thing she noticed were Ben’s arms around her, holding her gently against him. Light flooded back into her eyes and she opened them to see him.

His midnight hair was tangled with blood, and tears were drying on his cheeks.

“Ben”, she smiled. Never had he seen her smile at him like that. It was radiant. Her gaze was searching, and she hesitated for a moment, just staring at him until she finally pulled him towards her, and her lips met his.

He tasted of blood and tears, and she felt the Bond between them humming with life and love and balance. Her own heart was thudding wildly in her chest as Ben kissed her back, his hands tangling in her strands on the nape of her neck that had come lose from their buns as he held her close to his own hammering heart.

At last, she had to pull away to take a breath. There was a smile on his face, too, a beautiful smile of pure joy. It was the first time Rey saw him smile. Her heart felt as if bursting with happiness.

But something was wrong, Rey could feel it ripple through their Bond. The air changed all of a sudden. The humming had stopped, and it felt as if an invisible chord was pulling him away from her.

“Ben?”, she croaked.

But he didn’t answer. The light was gone from his eyes and he fell backwards before Rey could catch him in her arms. She realized what was happening. “NO! You weren’t allowed to do this, Ben! Come back! I didn’t tell you! I didn’t tell you that I wanted to take your hand, Ben.”

She put her head in the crook of his neck, tears clouding her vision.

“I never wanted the Galaxy. I only ever wanted to be with you”, she sobbed. But Ben would never hear it.

Rey put her hands on his chest, frantically searching for a heartbeat that was no longer there. He had given his own life to save hers.

***

It was quiet. Ben had never heard that kind of silence before and he knew instantly that it was the silence that belonged to the dead.

He slowly sat up, supporting his weigh with his hands and as he did so, he touched – moss?

Suddenly, the smell hit him. It was the smell of his childhood on Chandrila where he’d grown up: wet leaves and moss, the tangy scents of the forest after a gentle rainfall. He squinted, but there was a thick white fog surrounding him. He could hardly see anything but a few shadows in the distance. He rose from the ground, wiping crumbs of moss and earth from his hand on the black fabric of his tunic.

Ben swivelled, and finally noticed that the shadows he saw through the floating wisps of fog were the trunks of trees. Was this Chandrila?

“It’s different for everyone”, a voice chimed from behind him. Leia – and beside her, Luke.

Both looked like mist themselves, but the blue hue surrounding their forms told him they were Force Ghosts. Which meant…

“Mother. You’re _dead_ ”, he choked, and Leia held his gaze.

“I’m so proud of you, Ben.” She stepped forward and gently laid her hand on his cheek. There was nothing but love in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry. For everything I did”, Ben croaked, and started to sink to the ground again, the grief too overwhelming to bear.

Leia pulled him into a tight embrace before his knees could give in.

“There’s no need to be”, she promised. “You found your way back. Rey was the light that guided you home, and you saved her in return.”

“I promised she would never be alone”, he sobbed. Leia patted his hair, as she’d always done to soothe him when he was still a kid, and something had troubled him.

Finally, Luke spoke up. “Your father would be so proud of you, Ben. I am, too.” He crossed the distance between them and took Ben’s hand in his.

“I hope you can find it in your heart to eventually forgive me for what I have done”, Luke said. Ben only nodded, unsure of what to reply. Then, something changed.

“What – what is happening to you?” Ben watched as the figures of Luke and Leia started to dissolve into mist, getting even more transparent.

“We are already on the other side, Ben”, his mother told him. “There is no need to be afraid – we just can’t stay long in this place. It’s time to say goodbye, for now.”

“What do you mean?” Ben tried to grasp his mother’s hand, but she was gone already, and he was alone again.

A ripple went through the fog, like the surface of a lake hit by a stone. He could make out whispers, but he still didn’t see anyone.

“What is this place?”, he called out, hoping that somebody would answer.

 _You are in the world between worlds_ , answered a whisper. It was nothing more than a gust of wind carrying the bodiless voices, and it was definitely not Plagueis’ voice that had haunted him. The whisper consisted of thousands of voices, floating all around him. They were leaves rustling in the breeze, raindrops falling on water, a part of the strange forest surrounding him.

Ben knew in his heart that he wasn’t in any danger.

 _You are in the world between worlds_ , the voices carried on. _You are dead, but you haven’t crossed over yet._

So, it was true. This place was not Chandrila – he was dead.

“Who even are you?”, Ben called out.

_We are death itself. We are life. We are light and dark and everything in between. We are the Whills. We are the Force._

He had heard of the Whills – tiny creatures, travelling through the midi-chlorians, using them as vessels. Luke had told them the legend of the Whills in the academy, a lifetime ago. But Ben had thought it was just that: a legend.

He was not sure what was happening anymore. He felt as if he would burst from all those emotions he felt.

_What do you want? What will you do? Will you cross over?_

He knew what he wanted, he’d always known, deep in his heart, since he first met her in the forest on Takodana.

“Ben.” Rey’s voice. Rey’s voice was calling to him.

He looked around. Was that really her, or did he start to hallucinate now? He wouldn’t be surprised. If he ever left this mysterious forest in the fog, he would never be surprised at anything again for the rest of his existence.

“Ben?”

It _was_ her. Her soft voice was muffled by the fog that surrounded him like a wall. He could feel droplets of condensed water dripping out of his black strands. His eyes tried to scan the surroundings, searching for her, but he was still alone on this strange clearing.

“Ben, come back to me. Please, come back.”

“I’m here!”, he finally called out, but she didn’t seem to hear him.

That’s when he saw it: a thin thread of light right in front of him, its end disappearing into the never-ending fog. Had it been there all the time? He was certain he would’ve noticed it sooner if it had.

“Ben.” Rey’s voice floated through the wisps of fog, but she sounded more and more desperate.

The glowing light never wavered, emitting a strong, pulsing energy. It was bright, but not blinding; warm, bur not burning. Like life itself, Luke’s words came back to his mind. Suddenly, it made sense. Luke had tried to give him a hint. The thread was the Force Bond that still connected his soul with hers.

Ben realized that if he grabbed the thread of light, it would lead him through the fog and back to Rey.

 _To which side will you cross?_ , the Whills continued their rustling.

Without hesitation, Ben grabbed the thread.

***

He finally came to, and it felt as if he broke the surface of a frozen lake. Gasping, he sat up with a jolt.

“BEN!”

Rey was in his arms instantly, her tears of happiness mingling with his own as she held him in a tight embrace, her forehead resting on his. Had she really _kissed_ him before he’d died?

“I thought I lost you”, she sobbed. “I thought you were dead!”

“I think I was”, he rasped. “Rey… my mother is dead.”

Rey stared at him. “No. No, she was fine when I left. She’s on Commenor, with the others.”

Ben helplessly shook his head. “I saw her. When I was dead, she was there. With uncle Luke. She was _there_ , Rey. She told me she was proud –“

His voice broke as Rey pulled him into another embrace, his hot tears spilling on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Ben”, she whispered.

“She forgave me.”

Rey held him tight, her hands gently stroking his hair to soothe him.

“But she was happy”, Ben said. Rey didn’t know if he was talking to her or himself.

He pulled out of their embrace. “We need to get away from here”, he told her. “We’re still floating around in space like a blinking target.”

Rey nodded and got up from the floor.

“I’ll type in the coordinates.”

Ben didn’t seem to hear her. He looked so lost, still sitting on the floor, his hair a tangled mess. 

Rey noticed that the navigational systems were black. No beeping, no blinking lights. She couldn’t even bring herself to care, after all that had happened the last few minutes.

“I think we were hit immediately after launching the pod into space. The navigation systems don’t work, but the communication systems do, thank the stars.”

She came to kneel beside him again.

“I’ll comm my friends from the Resistance. They’ll come and get us. Okay?”

“Do you think that’s a good idea after all I’ve done to them?”

Rey shrugged. “You’re with me, so they’ll have to deal with it.”

“There is something else”, Ben blurted out. “Rey… it’s not over yet. There is something I need to tell you. In the last few days, I was hearing a voice. It was Darth Plagueis.”

Rey stared at him in shock and disbelief.

“Darth Plagueis is dead. He’s nothing more than a children’s tale.”

Ben shook his head. “That’s what I first thought, too. But it was _him_ , without a doubt. He offered me a deal to help me take back the First Order, and _he_ was the one who told me the coordinates to find the fleet after they abandoned me –“

“Oh, stars I think my head is bursting”, she interrupted him.

“Rey, Luke’s Force ghost talked to me through the Force, too.“

He paused. Rey was still staring at him. 

“I believe you, Ben. But we both just _died_ , so I think we should rest and wait for rescue. And then, you can tell me the whole story.”

He nodded, suddenly feeling very tired and dizzy.

*** 

His master raged as he never had before.

 **THEY SAVED EACH OTHER. THEY WERE SUPPOSED TO KILL EACH OTHER**.

“Master, what can I do?”, the droid chirped. His master’s anger didn’t frighten him.

**Work faster. I need this new body as soon as possible. And I need it to be much tougher than the last one.**

11-4D took off to fulfil his master’s orders.

**And I will start to take matters into my own hands now. Let’s see how easily a mind can be broken.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little calmer than the last one, but it's the calm before the storm. The next chapter will be online next saturday :)

“Leia… She just… _vanished_ ”, Poe stuttered, again and again. Finn and Rose had found him on the ground of the command cave. He looked as if he’d seen a ghost, while Chewie was sitting in a corner, quiet, heart-breaking howls escaping the Wookie’s throat. Poe had told them how Leia had meditated as he and Chewie had entered the room. Then, the General had looked up at them – her face filled with a happiness Poe had never seen on her before – and had collapsed into Chewie’s arms, where she vanished.

“But why?”, Rose replied. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does”, Finn spoke up. “If a Force-wielder dies, the body vanishes, and they become one with the Force. Rey once told me.”

BB8 beeped his agreement while Poe patted the droid on its spherical head.

“But _why_? Did it have something to do with her meditation?”, Rose asked. Tears were rolling down her face. She’d liked Leia, who had reminded her so much of her own mother. Nobody had an answer to that.

She closed her hands around the necklace of Heisian metal, wishing for the thousandth time that her sister could be here. In moments like these, she felt Paige’s loss even more. A thought came to her mind.

“Why was she here in the first place, in the middle of the night?”, Rose asked with a frown.

Poe hesitated. Finn and Rose had found him and Chewie in the control room just an hour ago. The trio had just arrived from their own mission and Chewie had wanted to greet Leia first thing after their arrival.

Poe hadn’t even congratulated them to their success of saving forty children from the First Order’s clutches.

“Wait…”, realisation dawned on Finn’s face. “Where’s Rey? Did she already go to Jakku?”

“She went to Jakku at sunrise and was to return until sunset. She never came back.”

“That’s why Leia was here. She wanted to wait for Rey”, Rose muttered while Finn sank to his knees.

“I told her it was a good idea.” He shook his head in desperation.

“She would have gone anyway”, Rose told him quietly, avoiding looking at him.

“Yes”, Poe agreed, “She’s as stubborn as a Bantha.”

“How are we going to mourn our dead if they all are swallowed in flames or just vanish or fade into thin air?”, Rose choked. “Who is going to lead us now? Leia was a hero. The people loved her, they followed her, they trusted her… who else is left to do those things?”

“Hope is like the sun”, Poe said and put his hand on Rose’s shoulder. “And if you only believe in it when you see it –“

“- you’ll never make it through the night,”, Rose finished the sentence. “I know.”

“We need to tell the others”, Finn said. Poe and Rose nodded and at the same time, BB8 began to beep frantically, rolling towards a blinking green light.

“An emergency signal on the Resistance’s secret frequency. One of our own!”, Poe called out in surprise and headed to take the comm. Finn raised his head, home shimmering in his eyes.

“This is Rey”, the voice called out of the speakers.

“Rey!”, Finn called out from the background and Poe shushed him.

“Finn! We escaped from the First Order Fleet in one of their escape pods, but I think they hit us, because our navigational systems don’t work. We’re just floating. You need to come and rescue us.”

“Wait… we? Who is we?”, Poe asked in confusion.

Rey hesitated. “I should have started with telling you this. Okay, hear me out before you start shouting. Ben Solo is with me. He saved me from the First Order.”

Poe sighed deeply. “Rey, he _is_ the First Order.”

“No. Not anymore.”

***

There was a long silence in the command room until everyone started shouting all at once. It sounded like a flock of porgs.

“STOP IT”, Rose shouted. The others fell silent again, staring at her. She had never once shouted before.

“He kidnapped her!”, Finn shouted. “We need to rescue her!”

“They’re on their way already”, Rose replied. “And she called him Ben Solo.”

“That guy is NOT Ben Solo anymore!”, Poe retorted. “He kidnapped me once.”

“We know”, Finn said.

“And then, he let them torture me”, Poe continued.

“ _We know_.”

“And then, he tortured me himself with his Dark-Side-Psycho-mind-tricks.”

“YOU TOLD US.”

“It’s okay, Finn, calm down”, Rose chided.

A look of disbelief settled on Poe’s features.

“And we just let him in? How do you want to tell the rest of the Resistance? This is Ben Solo, formerly known as Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the Galaxy, but we’ve decided _we’re all friends now_? By the stars, I need to sit.”

“Maybe things are different than they seem. We don’t even know the whole story”, Rose said quietly.

“What else is there to know?! The guy is a murderer! He killed his own father. I was there”, Finn agreed with Poe. “He also killed lots of other people. So many of our own Resistance fighters have lost friends and family because of him. Even if we wanted to welcome him – do you think he would be safe here?”

Rose shrugged. “We have all lost friends and family – me included! – but we have lost them to war, not to a single person.”

“Rose, I really wish I had that kind of strength to forgive people and give them second chances, but I don’t”, Poe sighed.

“On the other hand,” Finn said, “Rey seems to trust him. And we trust her.”

Rose nodded. “That’s what I was trying to say. Give him a chance to defend himself. After all, he is Leia’s son, and it would have been her last wish to give him a chance to tell his story. Maybe _he_ is the hope we were waiting for all the time.”

***

There was no time to lose. Whoever now lead the First Order, they’d search the Yavin-System for the floating escape pod.

In the matter of a few minutes, Finn, Rose, Poe (who took BB8), Chewie (who still seemed to be in some kind of stupor) and – to make the situation even worse – C3PO, who had insisted to come after the shock of Leia’s death – had boarded the Falcon and were on their way to the Yavin System.

This time, Poe had occupied the pilot’s seat. The blue lights of hyperspace were rushing by the window. Nobody talked, everyone – even Threepio – was deep in their own thoughts.

With a jolt, the Falcon jumped out of hyperspace. The space around the jungle-covered moon seemed empty.

“Can you find the pod via radar?”, Finn asked Poe, who nodded.

“Am I the only one who wonders why there aren’t any First Order ships here? Rey said they were here.”

Rose shrugged. “She didn’t tell us they were near Yavin-4. This is a huge system, after all.”

Something began to beep frantically.

“The radars”, Poe told them. “I think we found the pod.”

***

Rose didn’t know what she had expected to find, but it was certainly _not_ this.

Rey was fast asleep on the floor of the escape pod, drenched in dried blood. At first, Rose thought the girl was dead – but then she noticed she was just sleeping, her chest moving with calm, deep breaths.

Beside her was a young man. He was fast asleep as well, his black hair fell all over his face, hiding away his features. But Rose knew who he was, anyway. She recognized him from the battlefield on Crait.

“That’s Kylo Ren”, Finn stated as he looked inside the pod they had sucked into the Falcon’s bay. They had left Chewie and the two droids in the cockpit.

“We could kill him now.”

Finn and Rose threw Poe a glance.

“I mean, _if_ we wanted to do it. Now would be the time.” Poe cleared his throat.

“We’re the good guys”, Finn replied. “The good guys don’t kill people in their sleep.”

“You would be surprised”, a voice croaked and the three of them whirled around. Ben Solo (Rose decided she would call him by his birth name instead of Kylo Ren) was awake, slowly trying to sit up on the floor. From the expression on his face, Rose could tell that he was injured. Rey was stirring in her sleep beside him, slowly opening her eyes.

The five stared at each other for a few seconds, then Rey jumped from the ground and pulled Finn into a bear hug.

Ben – still sitting on the ground – winced a little.

With a click to pull off the safety bar, Poe pointed his blaster at Ben. But he didn’t seem impressed.

“Poe! Put it down!”, Rey called out and positioned herself between Poe and Ben who were still glaring at each other, “He’s not our enemy.”

Slowly, still glaring at Ben over Rey’s shoulder, Poe finally let the blaster sink.

Rose put a hand on Rey’s arm. She needed to tell her. “Rey… Leia is dead. She just vanished. In Chewie’s arms.”

Rey nodded; her eyes were dark with sadness. “I know. Ben saw it.”

Again, all eyes focused on Ben who slowly rose from the floor, wincing at wounds they couldn’t see under his tunic.

“Ben!” Rey made her way towards him and tried to support him, a little clumsily herself, as he swayed to the left.

“We need to bring him to the med bay!”

Finn and Poe didn’t seem to notice a thing. _Men_ , Rose thought. Whatever Finn had wanted to tell her in the Falcon before they’d started their mission and saved the kids, he hadn’t tried to talk to her again. Maybe he’d forgotten, or maybe he just didn’t care anymore. Rose couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

They all stepped out of the way as Rey helped Ben out of the rescue pod and towards the Falcon’s living quarters.

“Medical equipment!”, Rey just shouted over her shoulder.

“Can anyone tell me what’s happening here?”, Finn asked. He really was confused. Poe shook his head in disbelief.

“I feel like I just woke from a cryo-sleep. Into a parallel universe.”

“Rose – what are you smiling at?”, Finn wanted to know.

“Nothing”, she chimed and followed the two out of the pod.

***

Ben flinched in anguish as Rey helped him sit down on the cot that was built into one of the walls.

“Okay, I’ll just get the med set”, Rey told him and started to turn, but Ben grabbed her hand. She looked at him, and he let go of it. He didn’t really know how to handle this situation. He didn’t even know if she remembered the kiss – it was right after he’d brought her back from the dead, after all.

He really needed to talk to her about what had happened, needed to tell her that he loved her, but first, they needed to warn the others.

“No, please don’t go. It’s just a few broken ribs”, he pressed. “We need to warn the others. They must learn that Plagueis is back. We need to talk about what I heard. _All_ of us.”

He could still feel her fear through the Bond; the fear to lose him again, which sent his heart stumbling.

“We’ve already wasted too much time”, he insisted. Rey finally gave him a nod.

“I’ll go get the med equipment. Then you tell me, and then we can tell the others. Okay?”

Ben nodded hesitantly.

“I’ll just stay here and wait”, she quipped with a small smile. There was absolutely nothing to cause this surreal happiness he felt when Rey looked at him, but it was there, anyway.

“Rey?”

She turned.

“Umm… what are all those porgs doing here?”

***

When Rey returned, she carried a large trunk in her arms. Ben seemed as if he wanted to jump up and help her carry it, but the pain kept him in place.

“There we go. So…” She hesitated and stared at him. “You need to take off your tunic.” Oh stars, what was she doing?

He complied, and Rey suddenly found the dusty floor of the Falcon very interesting. _It isn’t like I haven’t seen him half naked before_ , she told herself. Somehow, it didn’t help. She felt the blush creeping up her neck and cheeks. She started to get all jittery.

Ben cleared his throat and she raised her head, careful to fix her gaze firmly on his. He looked a little bashful himself.

“I can do this on my own, you know”, he told her.

“No!”, she shouted. Much louder than she’d intended. Oh stars, it was suddenly very hot inside the ship.

He stared at her.

“I… you saved my life”, she whispered.

“And you saved mine”, Ben replied quietly. “Rey –“

“Please, let me help you.”

He gave her a nod, and Rey pulled out the portable x-ray device, letting it hover over his chest.

“Five broken ribs”, she stated. She was really close to him now, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his skin. She lifted her gaze and their eyes met again. His face was only inches from hers; he was so close that she could see her reflection in his dark eyes.

All she wanted to do was close the distance between them and kiss him again. But wasn’t that improper? He was injured, and his mother just died. How could she even think about kissing him?

Also… he still hadn’t said anything about the kiss in the escape pod, and if she were being honest, maybe he didn’t even remember – it was only seconds before he _died_ in her arms. Rey was sure he didn’t remember.

But he had that look in his eyes, the same way he had looked at her as their hands had touched over the fire on Ahch To –

“Master Ben!”

“Oh stars, not him”, Ben groaned. The moment was gone, and Rey felt herself blushing all over again. She couldn’t hold back the small giggle escaping her as she took in Ben’s face at Threepio rounding the corner.

She could feel his groan through the Bond.

“Threepio.”

“Master Ben! You have returned!”

“Yes.”

“Oh! You are half-naked”, Threepio stated the obvious, his yellow visual sensors scanning over the x-ray device Rey stilled clutched in her hands.

She wanted to disappear into thin air.

***

Every family had this one _very_ annoying family member you could only bear for a short time until you had to hide from them for the next months or – preferably – years. To Ben, Threepio was this one family member.

Threepio was still standing in the doorway.

He could have screamed in frustration as the droid had entered. What would have happened if he hadn’t interrupted the moment? Would Rey have kissed him? He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to tell her about his feelings for her, but how could there be any time to do that if there was this threat to the whole Galaxy?

Ben tried to focus. He wouldn’t tell her how Plagueis had threatened her. It was enough if he was frightened, she didn’t need to be afraid, too.

Rey had taken to tend to his shoulder, where the blaster bolt had struck him. He’d completely forgotten about it. He winced as she disinfected the wound. No matter how many times you were wounded in battle, it always hurt the same. But there was no time left to rest.

“Rey, it’s time to warn the others.”

She looked up at him, her brow furrowed.

“Yes. I’ve already told them to assemble in the living quarters. Let me tape this and then we’ll tell them. Together. What do you think?”

“Sounds like a plan. I don’t think they’ll ever trust me.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes as he said it.

“I trust you, Ben.” Warmth was flooding him through the Bond. “And I know deep in my heart that they will, too.”

***

Chewie and BB-8 had stayed behind in the Cockpit; Chewie, because he didn’t want to come out and BB-8 because someone had to watch out if they were followed by any First Order ships, but the rest of them had taken their seats or sat down on the floor.

“So, what’s this about?”, Poe asked impatiently.

Ben took a deep breath.

“Darth Plagueis is back.”

They all stared at him, and he could see in their eyes that they didn’t believe him.

“I heard his voice”, he continued, “it was him. I know it, because I heard Luke’s voice, too – he haunted me – and Luke confirmed that it was Plagueis. And when I was dead…” He wasn’t sure how to tell them. It didn’t matter, anyway. They would never believe him. He hadn’t even had the chance to tell Rey about his strange encounter with the Whills in the World between Worlds.

“How many voices exactly do you hear in your head?”

“Poe!”, Rey chided.

Ben could already feel the headache forming behind his eyes.

“Of course, you don’t believe me. I know it sounds completely mad –“

“Yes. It does”, Poe interrupted again, but Ben ignored him.

“- but Plagueis is out there, and he is real. And most importantly: he is getting stronger every minute we sit here and waste by discussing if you should execute me before or after lunch.”

It was silent. Ben could feel the rage boiling inside him.

“He is right”, Rey insisted. “We can’t waste any more time. We have to find Plagueis and stop him before he gets too strong to do it.”

“And do you know how to stop him?”, Rose asked timidly.

Rey threw Ben a helpless glance.

“Not yet.”

“Wait, wait, wait”, Poe interfered again, earning him another glare from Ben.

“This guy”, he pointed at Ben, “has murdered so many members of the Resistance. He killed his own father and he kidnapped me.”

“He kidnapped me, too, Poe”, Rey replied dryly.

Ben had the feeling this conversation was somehow turning out of his favours.

“Ben was the one who killed Snoke. Snoke wanted him to kill me, but Ben killed him instead.”

Silence again, aside from the cooing of the porgs all around them. Even Threepio just stared.

“You what?!” That was Finn. “What else didn’t you tell us, Rey?”

Rey didn’t look at him. Of course. She hadn’t told them about their Bond. Ben would leave it to her if she ever wanted to tell her friends.

“It doesn’t matter”, Rose finally spoke up.

“If Rey knows that Plagueis is back, we should stop discussing if Ben is trustworthy –“

“He isn’t.”

“– Poe, I’m really close to hitting you right now.” Now it was Rose everybody stared at. Gentle Rose, threatening to hit Poe.

Ben would have liked to hit Poe, himself.

“This is was Plagueis wants. If we disagree with each other, there won’t be anyone to stop him. Don’t you see?”, Ben asked.

“So, what’s the plan?”, Finn questioned.

“We need learn where he is and how to stop him, as fast as possible”, Rey explained. “Which means that we need to go back to Commenor for the ancient Jedi texts. If there is an answer, we’ll find it in those texts.”

Ben raised his brows at her. How did she get the ancient Jedi texts?

“If I may interrupt”, Threepio chimed in, “We actually don’t need the texts. I translated them all and saved them in my memory store.”

“Threepio!”, chimed Poe in surprise, “You actually did something useful! Great. Then let’s go and crack the droid’s head.”

Threepio’s somehow constantly shocked expression seemed to be even more shocked now.

“I don’t think we need to crack his head open”, Rose interrupted. Poe shrugged.

“It would have been a good excuse, though”, he replied.

Finn asked: “The question is: do we go back to the Resistance Base directly?”

Ben had noticed Finn’s hesitation to mention the location of the new base and rolled his eyes.

“I know it’s on Commenor. You don’t have to keep it a secret.”

“Oh. Great. Good for you.” Finn turned away indignantly.

“We can’t fly back, yet”, Rey muttered with a warning glance in Finn’s direction. “If someone from the First Order followed us, we’d lead them directly to the base.”

“They don’t know the new base is on Commenor, do they?”, Rose turned to Ben with a panicked expression.

He shook his head in reply. “They don’t. They’d just located the Falcon. I’m sure they could do it now, too, but they’re waiting for us to fly back to the new hideout. So, no, we can’t go back yet.”

“Yeah. I think we should talk about how you tried to vaporize us in Commenor’s asteroid belt”, Finn snapped at Ben.

“Not _now_ , Finn. We have plenty more pressing things to discuss.”, Rey scolded Finn again, and he continued to glare at Ben as soon as she’d turned away.

Ben reciprocated the glare, but he knew the ex-trooper had good reasons to hate him. They all had.

Poe cleared his thought and all eyes turned to him. “Okay, so here’s the plan: we jump through a few systems aimlessly for a few days to shake off any pursuers that might be lurking, then we go back to Commenor. That means we can’t even send the Resistance a signal because the First Order could track it.”

“And in the meantime, Ben and I are going to sift through Threepio’s copies of the Jedi texts to find a way to stop Plagueis from coming back again. Or does anyone have another idea on that?”

“No”, Rose finally broke the silence, “but I will try to help with the texts, if you let me.”

Ben knew it was more of a peace-offering to him than a general offer to help, and he felt enormously grateful for that. At least, it was a start.

***

She was young, and she lived in a small, poverty-stricken settlement of farms on Tattooine – he found it fitting to start where the first of the Skywalkers had been born. Also, she was Force-sensitive, but she didn’t know, yet. The voice had first spoken to her when she was repairing the harvester droids – the few that could still do the job they were programmed to do – and her first thought was that she’d been in the sun for too long. But the voice had returned to her, day after day.

She longed to get away from that place, to escape this life of poverty. The voice had offered her exactly that.

**I can help you get away, girl.**

It never told her what it wanted in return, and that had made her sceptical: there was no help for free, it always came with a price. That much, she’d learned in her young life.

**All you must do is lend me a hand with your powers.**

“I have no powers.”

 **Oh yes, you have** , the voice had chuckled. **And if you come to me, I’ll show you how to use it, girl. You could be strong and feared… they will cower in the dust beneath you, instead of the other way around… if only you let me train you.**

Plagueis could feel how much the girl longed to get away from that place. He’d grant her that wish.

It didn’t take much longer until he had convinced her. She was the one to answer his call, but she wouldn’t be the last. There were more broken souls with those same powers all over the galaxy who didn’t know a thing about him or the Force, and they would all come to him. It had started, and nobody would be able to stop it, until it was too late.

***

There was one person aboard the Falcon that hadn’t taken part in the discussion earlier, and Ben dreaded to meet him. He stood in front of the cockpit doors, which had been shut, hesitating to knock. His fist was hovering in the air in front of the door for a while now.

Chances were high that Chewie wouldn’t hesitate even that long before choking him on the spot for what he’d done.

The decision to enter was taken away when the door slid open and… something rolled out. For a brief second, it paused, then it started emitting agitated beeps and bumped into his shin with a force he wouldn’t have suspected from such a small droid.

Then, it started to electrocute his legs.

“Ow!”, Ben shouted, jumping away from the droid, but it began chasing him. He sprung onto one of the benches in the seating corner the droid couldn’t reach.

He heard Poe’s laughter from somewhere. The droid had stopped its furious beeping and just stared at Ben, who stared back.

“So, you must be the droid I was looking for”, he stated drily.

Another angry beep. Yes, it was the BB-unit that had carried the missing part of the map to Luke’s hiding place. He recognized the orange accents.

“Are you going to electrocute me again if I come down?”

This time, the beep was confirming rather that infuriated.

But Ben didn’t get a chance to answer. A loud, bone-shattering, heart-breaking howl rumbled through the Falcon. Chewie was standing in the doorway; his eyes were fixed on Ben. His heart sank as he saw his father’s old friend. Chewie had always been family.

As the Wookie now stormed towards Ben, he froze in fear of Chewie’s wrath. He closed his eyes, not even trying to scramble away. But instead of strangling him, Chewie pulled him into a tight, furry embrace.

Ben opened his eyes and blinked, then slowly began to hug the Wookie back, who still hadn’t let go of him.

“Uncle Chewie”, he whispered, his voice suddenly coarse and he noticed a tear rolling down the side of his face and spilling into the Wookie’s pelt.

“Uncle Chewie, I’m so sorry –“

Chewie interrupted him with another howl.

“Yes”, Ben replied. “Yes, I am.”

***

It had taken only half an hour for Rose to hack into Threepio’s memory storage and extract the copies of the Jedi texts onto three holo-pads.

Rey had used the time to finally clean off all the blood that had still clung to her. She desperately longed to take a nap, too, but there was no time left. So, she’d changed into a set of fresh clothes she’d fortunately left in the Falcon’s compartments when she’d set out to find Luke on Ahch-To, a lifetime ago, and went to meet Ben and Rose in the living compartment. It felt strange but wonderful to have a situation like this. Ben was with here. He’d turned for her, just as the Force had shown her.

Since Rose would be with them, Rey wouldn’t have the chance to talk to Ben about that kiss and finally tell him about her feelings. Which might have been a sign she shouldn’t talk about it, at all.

“Any key words we’re searching for?”, Rose inquired.

“The Whills”, Ben told her.

“What are the Whills?”

He shrugged. “That’s what we need to find out.”

“Ben, maybe you should tell us the whole story now, about what happened when you were…”

Rey couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.

He nodded. It was easier with only Rey and Rose around, which meant _without_ Poe and Finn’s biting comments.

“When I was dead”, he started, glancing at Rey, “I saw uncle Luke. And my mother.” His voice broke a little.

Rey reached out to touch his hand lying in his lap, hesitated and pulled back again. Having lived in loneliness for the most part of her life, she wasn’t good with things like comforting or knowing if it was okay to touch people.

He pulled himself together. “It was some kind of forest – like the forests on Chandrila – and there was this fog everywhere. You couldn’t see a thing. Luke and my mother faded away, they told me they couldn’t stay in that place for long because it was an in-between of some kind. There were other voices, too – just voices, I couldn’t see anyone else. Many voices, and they whispered to me. They told me they were the Whills, that they were the Force itself and that the place was called ‘World between Worlds’. I know it doesn’t really make sense.”

Rose had become very quiet. Was Paige in that place, too? Or did this place solely belong to those who were able to use the Force? Everything in her screamed to ask Kylo – Ben, she reminded herself – to tell her more about this place in between. But Rose knew deep in her heart that wherever Paige had gone, it wasn’t there and there was no way for her to bring her sister back.

“You got lost”, Rey whispered. Ben gave her a glance that made Rose feel as if she’d interrupted a private moment between the two.

“Yes. I got lost. The Whills told me I would have to leave the World between Worlds, that I should make the choice to cross over. If you hadn’t called to me, Rey, I wouldn’t have found my way back.”

“Did you follow my voice?” Rey fought hard to push the flood of memories to the back of her mind; she didn’t want to think about those minutes she’d held his dead body in her arms, begging him to come back to her.

“I heard your voice”, Ben told her. “But I couldn’t follow it. There was something else, a thread of light right in front of me, and I knew it was connected to you, Rey. I was certain that thread was our Bond, so I caught it in my hands and then… I woke. I know it sounds strange, but I remember all of it. It was _real_.”

Something in Rose’s thoughts came alive. A memory she’d buried deep to escape the pain it brought her.

“A Bond. Like a thread”, Rose whispered. Ben and Rey looked at her as if they’d forgotten she was with them.

“Rose, I’m sorry –“, Rey began, but Rose held up her hand to silence her, her mind reeling with thoughts.

“Do you know the tale of Ariadne and the thread of light?”

Ben and Rey exchanged another glance before both shook their heads.

“It’s a fairy-tale mother often told Paige and me before bed.” A lump was forming in her throat at the memories flooding her. “It was the tale of a girl, Ariadne, who lived in a small village surrounded by a labyrinth inhabited by a beast. Every year, a boy or girl was chosen and sent into the labyrinth as a human sacrifice to appease the beast. Ariadne fell in love with another girl. Sometimes, people tell the tale as if they were friends or sisters, but they were lovers in the original tale. So, Ariadne fell in love with this girl, Thea. Thea was chosen as the human sacrifice of the village they lived in. Ariadne begged the stars for help, and they fulfilled her wishes: they spun a thread of light and connected Ariadne and Thea so that Thea could find her way out of the labyrinth with the thread. Back to her lover.”

When she had finished the tale, Ben and Rey stared at Rose.

“I mean, it’s a fairy tale, but this thread of light…”

“Our Bond”, Rey gasped. “It’s not a fairy tale at all. The stars are the Force, and the thread of light is the Force Bond!”

“Our Force Bond.”

“Which makes the labyrinth a metaphor for death. So, Ariadne was gifted with the power to bring back her love from the dead”, Rey whispered.

“As you did for me.”

Rose was now sure the two of them would have kissed if it wasn’t for her being in the same room.

“So, you are connected through the Force? Like… you can talk to each other through it?”

“Talk, see each other…” _Touch_ , Rey added in her thoughts.

“But we cannot locate each other”, Ben explained. He’d tried it often enough the last three months, though.

Rose turned to Rey again. “I see why you didn’t tell anyone.”

“I don’t think the others need to know”, Rey began hesitantly.

Rose nodded. “It’s not my secret to tell.”

“Maybe we should look for anything about Force Bonds and the World between Worlds”, Ben suggested. “After all, Plagueis was the only being we know who had managed to use the Force to expand his lifetime.”

“If we find out how he managed to come back after his own death, we might find a way to kill him for good”, Rey agreed.

That had been hours ago. Ben, Rose and Rey were still sitting in a round, each of them absorbed in the texts on their own holo.

Every time when Ben felt unobserved, he threw glances at Rey until she moved, and he quickly looked away again. Rey did the same. Neither of them seemed to notice. Rose noticed the glances, and it was pretty amusing.

“I don’t think we’ll find any answers in those texts, to be honest”, Ben finally said and turned off his holo with a frustrated sigh.

“What if the – how did you call them?”

“Whills.”

“What if the Whills have the answers?”, Rose suggested.

Ben thought about that. “I’m sure they have answers. The problem is to reach them. As far as I know, they live in the World between Worlds, and to get there, you have to die.”

“What if dying is only one possible way?”, Rey contemplated. “What if there are other ways?”

“Like a doorway?” Ben didn’t sound convinced, but Rey already flipped through the holographic pages.

“There was a whole chapter on doorways”, she explained, still sifting through different texts.

“You do realize the only thing we found in the past hours was an explanation of our connection through the Force which – by the way – came from Rose, not of those texts. They’re completely useless.”

“I know, I’ve studied them way longer than you”, Rey quipped, still skimming the pages.

“But I’ve read something about doorways in one of those scrolls, it has to – YES! I found it! Ha!”

Rey held up her holo-pad so that Ben and Rose could have a look at the opened page.

It showed a picture of a meditating person, one half of the body was white, the other black. Rey had seen it somewhere, she was sure, though she couldn’t remember _where_.

“I don’t see how a picture of some person meditating could tell us a way into the World between Worlds”, Ben commented. Rose had to agree with him.

“That’s the history of the Force”, Rey explained, her eyes skimming the text beside the picture.

“It’s about balance, actually. It’s a very long origin story of the Jedi and the Sith, but the point of this whole chapter is there are always two sides. Opposites, complementary, whatever you may call them. There’s even a poem. The point is: there are always two opposed sides. That’s the symmetry of the Force and thus, of life itself. Which means if there is a way to enter the World between Worlds, which is where the Whills live, who call themselves the Force – there isn’t one entryway, but two.”

“So, one entryway has to be in a system that has always belonged to the Jedi, and one in a system that has always belonged to the Sith”, Ben completed Rey’s thoughts.

“Okay. Do you know where those ancient Sith and Jedi sites could be?”, Rose inquired.

“No”, Rey and Ben replied simultaneously.

“However,” Rey continued, “the ancient sites of the Sith and the Jedi are all connected to trees. They’re called Uneti-trees and they’re connected to the Force and to each other as well.”

“Maybe the origin story of the Jedi and the Sith could help us?”, Ben suggested.

Rey was already skimming through the text again. “Well, it all started with a few people who were born with the ability to wield the Force. They trained together and travelled the Galaxy to find more of their kind, until they reached an uninhabited planet in the Outer Rim, where a huge, ancient tree had grown – the first Uneti-Tree. They noticed that it had been the tree that had called them to the island in the first place – a tree with a connection to the Force. The first Force-wielders explored the Force and their own abilities with the tree’s help. There were discussions about which abilities should be used. Basically, the group was parted: one half wanted to use all of their abilities, while the others decided to only use a part of their powers since they considered some of those abilities evil.”

“I know the rest of the story”, Ben chimed in. “One of those arguments escalated, the two groups began to fight, and a Force-lightning hit the Uneti-Tree, which burned down to its trunk. The group that had wanted to use all their abilities left and became the Dark Jedi, or later the Sith. The other half stayed on the island, made the tree their first temple and became the Jedi. Which basically means we just have to find the first Jedi temple – the burnt Uneti-tree – and hope that’s where one of the entryways to the World between Worlds can be found. _If_ there are any entrances. We don’t know for sure if they exist.”

Rey opened her mouth to answer, then froze.

“Of course!”, she shouted. The image of a huge, burnt tree trunk had flashed in her mind.

“Master Ben, Miss Rey, Miss Rose!”, Threepio chimed in as he entered the room.

“NOT NOW!”, all three of them screamed at him simultaneously. Threepio made a step back.

“I’ve been there! At the temple! I just didn’t know it was the _first_ Jedi-temple!”, Rey told them. “We need to fly to Ahch-To.”

“Is that where you stole those ancient Jedi texts?”, Ben chuckled in her mind. There was a glimmer of amusement in his eyes.

“I borrowed them. You’re aware that you just sounded like Threepio?”

“We need to tell Poe”, Rose interrupted their bantering and stood up.

***

“Poe, Chewie, we have to go to Ahch-To. Immediately.”

Rey and Rose had entered the cockpit where Poe was still seated in the co-pilot’s seat. Chewie wouldn’t let him fly the Falcon anymore, which had drained even the last remaining dreg of his good mood.

“Why?”, he wanted to know.

“Because we’ll find our answers there.”

“Because _Ben_ thinks we find our answers there?”

“None of your business”, Rey rebuked.

“Actually, it _is_ my business.” That earned him an angry howl from Chewie.

“Fine”, Poe gave in with an annoyed sigh.

Another howl from Chewie, this time it was a question for Rey.

“We still have the map in the storage. At least, I’ve never erased it from the systems.”

Chewie typed in another sequence of commands and a holo-map of the Outer Rim opened in front of them.

“Wait, isn’t Ahch-To the place where you brought all those birds from?”, Poe wanted to know, and Rey nodded in response.

“Great. Get them together, we’ll leave them there. They’re annoying.”

“They’re not”, Rose told him. “They’re pets now. We gave them names.”

Poe stared at her in disbelief, then shrugged as Chewie howled his agreement with Rose. 


	6. Chapter 6

Poe, Chewie and the droids were in the cockpit, preparing the launch into hyperspace and the landing on Ahch-To while Rey, Ben, Finn and rose sat around Chewie’s chess table in the living compartments.

To describe the atmosphere as awkward would have been an understatement. Rose just stared silently at the ground while Ben and Finn continued their sulky glaring-contest.

“You’re still wearing black”, Finn finally commented on Ben’s clothes. He’d taken off the black overcoat but still wore the tunic and black pants.

“And next you’ll tell me how that means I’m still an enemy”, Ben retorted with another annoyed glance.

Finn looked as if he wanted to reply something but couldn’t find a clever reply.

Rey’s heart clenched at how her best friend and the man she loved hated each other with a passion. 

She felt a wave of compassion for Ben surge through her. He’d saved her life and had given up everything for her. She had promised to help him turn, and she intended to keep the promise.

“Finn, that’s enough. I understand your anger. But he saved my life. Twice. He killed Snoke for me, as I already told you. And two days ago, he was ready to give his own life to save me, _again_. If I hadn’t somehow been able to pull him back to me, he would have died for me.”

There was an awkward silence before Finn answered.

“You already told us. But – he’s Kylo Ren!”

“He’s _Ben Solo_. Leia’s son. If you can’t give him a second chance – not even for me – then do it for Leia, at least.”

“He doesn’t even have to give me a chance”, Ben interrupted, “I mean, thanks for helping, but I don’t need his sympathy.”

 _Maybe he’s even worse at social interactions than me_ , Rey thought as she let out a deep sigh.

“You see?”, Finn told Rey, then turned back to Ben. “What’s your problem?”

“Darth Plagueis is my problem”, Ben retorted. “But not you. You’re irrelevant.”

Oh stars.

“Stop it! Both of you!”, Rose chided before Finn could mutter his response. “We need to stop Darth Plagueis. If we’re done with that and still alive by then, you can hit away at each other to your heart’s content. For now, shut up.”

All three of them stared at Rose. She seemed to contemplate if she should carry on with her outburst.

With a glare at Finn, she told him: “My sister died for the cause of the Resistance; a child died so we could save the others from the academy. And there you are, holding grudges like a little brat.”

With that, Rose stood and rushed out of the living quarters, while Finn let himself sink a little deeper into his seat.

When she was gone, Ben threw Finn a glance that might have been a slightly smug.

“If I were you, I’d go and apologize”, he told him.

Rey wondered what had happened between Finn and Rose since the last time she’d seen them to cause such an outburst from the otherwise quiet Rose. After Finn had told her about the events on Crait, Rey had thought Finn and Rose would soon become more than just friends. She pondered if she should talk to Rose or Finn about it; to Rey, a situation like this felt like the Outer Rim of social interactions.

The Falcon rattled a little as it jumped out of hyperspace. They were on Ahch-To.

***

**[Ahch-To, Luke’s island]**

The landscape was rough and rocky, the rolling waves of the ocean below were crashing into the cliffs with thundering claps. The wind howled like a hoard of wookies, carrying with it the distant cries of porgs and splashes of saltwater.

“This is where Luke had been hiding the whole time?” Ben felt strange as he climbed the stone steps to reach the little huts that lined the northern slope. They stood neat rows with flat walls connecting them to each other like pearls on a string.

Finn was right behind them; he’d insisted on accompanying Rey and Ben on their way to the temple, either to prevent Ben from murdering Rey or to murder Ben himself – Ben wasn’t certain at this point.

When they arrived at the grass-covered plateau, two tiny creatures waddled toward them to greet them in a strange language Ben had never heard before.

“Guardians”, Rey explained in hushed tones, “they’re the keepers of the island. They maintain the huts and the temple.”

One of them seemed to recognize Rey, elbowed her friend beside her. Then, both growled something and stared at Rey with a dark expression before they turned and vanished inside one of the stone huts.

“Um. Somehow, I get the impression that they don’t seem to like you”, Ben noticed. It was more of a question than a statement. Rey just shrugged. Finn, who had arrived right behind them at the top of the stairs let out a quiet chuckle. It sent a pang of jealousy through Ben – oh stars, did Rey feel that through the Bond? – to think that Rey and Finn shared a secret running gag. _Of course they do_ , he chided himself for the feeling. They were best friends, of course they had inside jokes. The thought didn’t ease Ben’s envy.

“That’s because they really don’t like me”, Rey admitted drily.

“Why? I mean, you didn’t burn down anything, did you?”

Now, Finn let out a loud huff.

“I… shot a hole into one of the huts. By accident. You know…” She threw a sideways glance at Finn, who didn’t seem to notice.

Ben remembered the day, of course he did. The blaster bolt had been meant for him. However, he was surprised Rey’s explanation turned into an enumeration.

“After that, I crashed a boulder into a cart with their work equipment – that was an accident. Then, I stole the ancient Jedi texts from their sacred temple. Borrowed”, she corrected herself, “which was not an accident. And because of me – well, us – Luke blew up another hut.”

Ben didn’t know what to respond, so he opted to stay in the safe zone and just stayed quiet.

Rey came to a stop in front of another set of stairs and slowly turned towards Finn.

“The temple is up there, on top of the hill”, she told him. “Finn, I appreciate that you came with us all those stairs, but I think it’s better if you waited here for us.”

Finn’s gaze flickered between Ben and Rey, but to Ben’s surprise, he just nodded and sat down on one of the stone walls.

They took the last round of stairs and rounded the hill.

“Where is the Uneti-Tree?”, Ben asked, his eyes scanning the landscape for a huge tree trunk.

“Right there”, Rey murmured. He followed her gaze to a charred area in the otherwise lush grass on the hilltop. There was nothing left of the Uneti-tree, not a single piece of its trunk.

“What happed here?”, Ben wondered. Dread shot through him.

“This time, it wasn’t me.”

“Maybe it was Luke”, he suggested.

Rey had already started to make her way to the burnt circle. Having arrived, she let herself sink down to the charred grass. Flakes of ashes drifted around her in the wind like black snow.

Ben followed right behind her. “What do we do now?”, Rey breathed.

Ben reached out and gently pulled a flake of ash out of a loose strand of her hair that was whipped by the wind. She looked at him with dread.

“Those were our answers. Burnt to ashes. What do we do now?”

Ben shrugged helplessly. “There will be another way. There’s always another way, we just have to find it.”

She thought about that and for a moment, the only sounds were the raging ocean beneath and the bird’s wailing.

“Rey.” She looked up, tears shimmering in her hazel eyes. He wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, tell her everything would be okay. But he didn’t have the guts to do it. He never had.

Instead, he went on talking. “You told me there were paintings in the trunk. And the books, of course, but you stole – sorry, took – them which means at least the texts are safe. Maybe the wall paintings wouldn’t have helped at all. When you were inside the tree, did it seem to you like an entryway into a mystical world of death?”

Rey sniffled, then shook her head in contemplation.

“That’s good”, Ben told her. It seemed to cheer her up a little, so he continued rambling.

“If the entrance to the World between Worlds wasn’t in that tree, it didn’t burn down. You’re sure it has to be somewhere on Ahch-To. We can sift through the whole planet if necessary, island after island. There will be some other ancient tree, or” – he looked around helplessly, his eyes scanning the barren landscape – “or a creepy cave or something –“

“The cave!”, Rey shouted at him. “Oh my stars, of course!”

He didn’t exactly know to react to this outburst.

“Ben, the cave!” She was too agitated to form coherent sentences.

“Umm…”

She sprung up and grabbed his arm to pull him a little down toward her. Would she kiss him now? His mind was reeling and his heart stumbling. She came closer…

“THE CAVE!”, she shouted in his face. Finally, it clicked. The cave. She had told him about a cave she’d been in, right before their hands touched through the Bond. That touch had outshone everything else in his memories.

“That was here?”, he asked. A stupid question, but he was still flustered at how close she’d been a few heartbeats ago.

“YES!”

“You told me there was a mirror”, he recalled, “and it wanted to show you your parents but didn’t. You never told me what it showed you, actually.”

“It was a silhouette. I’d thought it was – never mind what I thought. It turned out to be only me. Which made sense, because I don’t _have_ parents anymore. I was alone at the time.”

“You weren’t”, he breathed. She didn’t hear him through the howling wind and crashing waves.

“We need to get down this hill and into the cave.”

“Yes, we will. But not now”, he told her, pointing towards the horizon were the sun had begun to set, sending streaks of fiery red across the sky.

“It’s not wise to explore dark caves by night. Anyways, we’ve barely slept the last two days and we were dead. I think it’s okay to take a rest. We’ll check your cave as soon as the sun rises.”

A thought seemed to cross her mind and he could feel her horror through the Bond.

“What is it?”, he asked softly.

“I just never thought about what we’d do if we actually found the doorway to the World between Worlds. It’s stupid, but I just realized one of us would have to…”

He had thought about it, though. The knowledge how much Rey feared to lose him made him happy and frightened at the same time. He didn’t want her to be afraid of _anything_ anymore.

“We’ll talk about what to do when we find the doorway _after_ actually finding it”, he suggested.

***

A few feet behind them, unnoticed by both, a silhouette had manifested, its blue hue glowing even more in the sunset. Luke watched them closely as they began their ascent from the hill. They had found to each other, finally. But there was a darkness awakening the Galaxy, threatening to suffocate his nephew’s newfound happiness.

The smile vanished from his face. Hopefully, Ben would be the first Skywalker – or Solo – to get a happy ending. He still had a long way to go.

***

Ben was standing in the middle of the Falcon’s cockpit. The only source of light were the millions of stars in the night sky, their faint glow flooding through the cockpit’s windows, tinting the interior and Ben’s silhouette in a silver hue. It was peaceful.

He’d come here to contemplate the last few days and the change they had brought. It had happened so fast. When he woke in the mornings, he always thought himself in his old quarters, aboard his Stardestroyer – and was relieved when he noticed that he wasn’t anymore.

The Falcon’s cockpit brought back so many memories of his childhood. It hadn’t all been bad. Over the years, Ben had told himself so many times how bad a father Han Solo had been, but standing in the cockpit, the happy memories he’d tried to extinguish from his mind resurfaced, hitting him with a wave of emotions.

There were vague, hazy images of himself as a toddler, sitting on his father’s lap in the pilot’s seat, and of him as a young child, dreaming of becoming the Galaxy’s best pilot one day, just like his father. You will be, Han Solo had always told Ben. You’re my son, after all. You have a natural talent as a pilot.

It had turned out that Ben had also inherited his grandfather’s natural talent to wield the Dark Side of the Force, as well.

Ben wished so badly to hear his father’s voice one last time, to tell him that he’d found his way back to the light, that he was in love… He smiled at the thought of how his father would’ve given him tips to tell Rey about his feelings. But Han Solo wasn’t there anymore, and it was Ben’s fault.

“I’m so sorry, dad”, he choked.

But the silence in the cockpit remained. His father wouldn’t answer; never again. Ben was only met with deafening silence.

***

**Rey**. The voice echoed in her head. She was in the forest on Starkiller Base, again. But Ben was nowhere to be seen. She stood between the trees, the snow falling silently all around her, the flakes catching in her hair and melting.

 **You could have killed him, Rey. You can still do it**.

She looked at the blue blade in her hands.

 **Yes. Kill him**. She began to slowly make her way through the trees. She had to find Ben. Warn him. But the voice mustn’t know that.

 **Do it, Rey. Feel this power. Taste it. KILL HIM**.

“NO!” She woke with a start. A dream. Her heavy breathing slowed a little. Ben. She had to find Ben. She untangled from the sheets, careful not to wake Rose who was stirring in her sleep on the cot beside her. They were all fast asleep.

She couldn’t forget the voice, and it was time to tell Ben. He would understand it. He would be there for her.

She tiptoed through the Falcons corridors, not sure what to do. Should she wake him or wait until morning? But two days had gone by since they were aboard the Falcon and they never had a moment alone.

Before she could make a decision, she stopped in her tracks. She was standing just before the cockpit’s entrance, and the doors weren’t closed. Ben was standing in the middle of the cockpit, deep in his own thoughts. Her heartbeat accelerated.

“Ben.”

He whirled around; it was obvious that she’d given him a fright.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Why aren’t you asleep?”, he asked.

Rey hesitated. “I had another nightmare.”

He looked at her, waiting for her to continue. _He would never pressure me into telling him if I didn’t want to_ , Rey thought. A wave of affection flooded the connection between them.

She knew he could feel it, too.

“I’ve been having those dreams for a while now. Most of the time…” She choked on the words. He was beside her in an instant, his hands hovering just above her shoulder but unsure if he should touch her.

“In those dreams, I kill you, Ben.”

“But they are nothing more than that: dreams. You would never kill me, Rey.”

A lump had formed in her throat.

“In the forest on Starkiller Base, when you were on the ground. That’s when I heard that voice first. It was telling me to kill you – not telling, that’s the wrong word. It… _spurred me on_ to kill you.”

Ben shrugged. “You didn’t.”

“That’s not the point. Since then, I’ve been hearing it more regularly. The next time it spoke to me, it was in Snoke’s Throne Room, after we’d defeated the red guards and fought over the lightsaber. You were on the ground again, unconscious. But that time, it was different. On Starkiller Base, I thought that voice belonged to me. I don’t know, some kind of intuition. But that day in the Throne Room, hearing it for the second time, I knew with all my heart that it wasn’t my inner voice, but something else.”

“And then the dreams started?”

Rey nodded in exasperation. “Then the nightmares started. And the voice was there every night, telling me to kill you. In those dreams, I complied – until tonight.”

She let herself fall to the hard floor of the cockpit and Ben sat down beside her.

“Ben, I think it’s Plagueis. It has always been Plagueis. I realised when you told me that he was back and you could hear his voice in your head.”

“So that was his plan all along”, Ben concluded. “He wanted us to finish each other off so that there would be no one left to stop him. Luke had taken on a life in isolation, and my mother had never trained to use the Force. We were the only ones left to oppose him, and we are the only ones now. But the one thing that just doesn’t make sense is how – “

He stopped. Realization dawned on his face and he gasped.

“Ben? What is it?” Rey was beginning to panic as she felt his shock and anger through the Bond.

“Oh my stars. It was Plagueis. All this time it was Plagueis.”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve tried to tell you –“

“No. Rey… what if _he_ was Snoke?”

They stared at each other.

“Wait. You mean…”

“It’s not impossible, is it? If Plagueis somehow managed to come back from the dead – it’s possible, I’ve done it two days ago! The Whills must have – I don’t know their role. But what if Plagueis had managed to find a body to occupy, as a vessel? When Palpatine, his student who had murdered him in his sleep, had been defeated, he built up a new Empire. As Snoke.”

“You were able to come back because I helped you. If Plagueis can come back, too, that means he has help as well”, Rey deduced.

Ben nodded and frowned, deep in his own thoughts.

“Do you think Snoke – Plagueis – really connected us through the Force? I never believed him that he had created the Bond between us. Never”, he said after a while.

Rey nodded in agreement. The question was: _what_ had connected them? Had it been the Force itself and if it had – why?

“In retrospect, it makes sense. Snoke always wanted me to kill you, Rey. That’s why I killed him at last. I always wanted to be free of his control, but the moment he laid his hands on you, something just snapped.”

The look she gave him sent his heart racing again.

“You did it for me.”

“Did you really doubt it?” He looked hurt, now.

“How could I have not? You didn’t come back with me, after I practically mailed myself through space to bring you home. I thought you’d used me to become Supreme Leader. Until you freed me from the First Order and gave your life to save mine.”

“I offered you the Galaxy.” He still sounded aggrieved.

Rey stared at him in disbelief. “I never wanted the Galaxy.”

“Yes. I noticed.”

“I only wanted to be with _you_. With Ben, not with Kylo.” Finally. Finally, she had found the strength to tell him.

His eyes were wide and the Bond between them was flooded with their emotions. He was so near. It was strange, Rey thought, how much he had changed in those two short days since he’d made the decision to turn for her and save her. He was still wearing black – basically the same clothes he’d worn as Kylo Ren – but the dark circles under his eyes had started to fade and his eyes had lost their haunted, wary expression. She already knew his dark, brooding side, but in the last days she’d come to know and love his humour and lightness as well. She could just bend her head a and kiss him again.

“Rey, I – oh”, another voice chimed in from the door.

That was Finn. She whirled around. He was standing in the doorway to the cockpit, looking as flustered as she felt. His gaze wandered to Ben. It seemed the stars didn’t want her and Ben to have a quiet moment.

“I heard that someone was awake, and I couldn’t sleep so I just came for a little chat… I feel like I should go to bed again. Yes. That’s what I’ll do. Ummm.”

“What did you want to chat about?”, Rey blurted, trying to cover how flustered she was. At least it was dark enough to cover the violent blush she felt creeping up her cheeks. She felt a small pang of anger about Finn disturbing her moment with Ben, but quickly shook it off.

“It can wait until tomorrow. I just – I thought about what Poe said. About the porgs. And I thought, we can’t leave them here, you know. They’ve become pets, just as Rose said.” He was rambling now.

“I should try to sleep, too”, Ben interjected and rose from the ground. He didn’t look at Rey.

“We should talk about it tomorrow”, he suggested. Rey didn’t know which topic he referred to: their feelings for each other, or the horrifying discovery that Plagueis seemed to have been Snoke all the time and had somehow become immortal.

***

As the sun rose, Rey quietly slipped out of the quarters she was sharing with Rose aboard the Falcon – the Falcon was a lot more comfy than the huts on the hill with their stone benches for a bed, and much warmer – Rose didn’t even stir in her sleep.

Rey and Ben hadn’t told anybody what they were about to do. After all, they didn’t exactly know themselves what their plan to search for the entrance entailed.

Rey hadn’t slept all night. She’d never been this tired in her life, not even after scavenging for twenty hours on some days to scrap together enough parts to change for something to eat, but sleep just wouldn’t come. After going to bed, the thoughts churning in her head about Plagueis, Snoke and Ben dead in her arms and the all-consuming terror to lose him again had kept her awake.

Sunrise hadn’t brought any relief but only increased her dread. No matter what it meant for the Galaxy, she hoped they’d never find the entryway to the World between Worlds. If they found it, she swore, she wouldn’t let Ben go through it, but do it herself. She’d rather die than lose him.

“Are you okay?”, Ben asked hesitantly as she met him in front of the Falcons ramp. He’d wrapped himself in the black cape he’d always worn as Kylo Ren.

The sun had just risen above the hills, tainting the glittering ocean beneath the island in all hues of red. Rey would have loved the view and the colours on every other day, but today – in the light of what might lay ahead of them – it reminded her of a sea of blood. She quickly turned away from the view.

“I’m feeling sick”, she told him honestly, thanking the stars that she hadn’t eaten anything for breakfast – or dinner last night, for that matter – or else she would have thrown up by now. “But let’s go. Please. The sooner we start…”

Ben understood. “You lead the way”, he told her with a wave of his hands.

“It was somewhere there”, she pointed a hand towards a particularly cutting formation of cliffs. “We need to ascend from there. It was dark when I’d last been in that cave, but something tells me it’s right there.”

Rey was right. Steep steps were carved into the cliffs. The crevices in the stone walls were filled with nests of cooing porgs who followed the couple with their huge eyes as they ascended the steps, careful not to slip on the wet, slippery stones. The stairs led them to a plateau only a few feet above the ocean, secluded by pointed rocks reaching up towards the grey skies. The sun had almost risen by now.

“Down there?”, Ben asked sceptically as he noticed the black hole in the ground, surrounded by dead, withered seaweed.

Rey nodded and kneeled in front of it.

“Well, I guess it wouldn’t be a sacred mysterious cave if it was plastered with pretty flowers”, Ben muttered as he peered down the abyss that seemed to lead directly into a black void.

“We didn’t bring any light”, Rey noticed.

Ben held up his old lightsaber. “It will make do.”

Before he could hold her back, Rey jumped into the hole. Ben gulped and followed her.

He landed on his feet with a loud thud, the sound echoing off the cave walls. “Great”, he remarked, “that would have alerted every sleeping monster in the neighbouring five systems, as well.”

Rey had to chuckle despite her tension. “It’s okay. Last time I was here, there was no ancient beast to guard the cave. Chances are good that we’re alone.”

Ben had ignited his lightsaber n the meantime, the red light filling the cave with an eerie glow that reflected in his dark eyes as he looked at her first, then let his eyes scan the surroundings. Rey did the same.

It wasn’t a cave at all, she now remembered. When she’d been here last time, she hadn’t taken a moment’s notice of her surroundings; all she remembered was that she’d fallen into a pool of ice-cold sea water. The pool was still there, of course. Rey noticed that it wasn’t really a cave but more of a grotto. The pool was nearly right in its centre, being fed by the ocean.

“Do you think there are tides here?”, she thought out loud. If there were tides, they’d have to keep an eye on the water level if they didn’t want to drown in here. Ben raised his lightsaber toward the nearest stone wall.

“No waterlines and no shells or seaweed on the walls”, he noted. His voice created another echo.

The walls were wet; though, and Rey could taste salt in the air, mingling with the tang of seaweed. The basin was connected to the ocean. She shivered in the cold air, her breath was forming small clouds in front of her, like wisps of mist. Ben noticed her shivering and instantly was at her side, draping his cape around her shoulders.

“Better now?”, he asked. A wave of affection hit her; they were about to enter the world of death – or something like it, at least – in a creepy, dark cave, but he was extremely concerned about her feeling cold.

She gave him a bright smile while clutching the cape a little tighter. It had always looked rough, somehow, but it was the softest fabric she’d ever touched.

“Thank you. It feels like being wrapped up in a cloud.”

Ben returned the smile, his eyes sparkling in the sparse light. They were so close now; Rey could see the little droplets of water that condensed in his hair and shimmered like little rubies in the saber’s flare. She couldn’t help but stare at his smile before she was catapulted back into the gravity of the situation.

“Can I have the saber for a moment, too?”

Ben slowly passed it to her. The metal was cool and heavy in her hands as she turned and pointed the saber toward the furthest wall of the grotto. The red glow was reflected back, and she saw her own silhouette. The mirror was still there, just as she remembered. It wasn’t a mirror, though, but a polished wall of smooth stone. Smooth enough to reflect the whole interior.

“It’s like a cathedral”, Ben breathed in awe. “You can feel how ancient this place is. This grotto must be thousands of years old, maybe even as old as the Force itself.”

Rey shivered again – this time, though, not from the cold. She suddenly felt as if there was something in the cave with them. Something… or someone.

 _Did you feel that?_ , she asked through the Bond.

 _I did, he confirmed_.

Together, they stood still and listened, but beside the buzzing of the ignited lightsaber and the splashing and burbling of the seawater in the pool moving with the ocean, there were no sounds.

“I’m pretty sure that if there are any entrances to the world between worlds, one of them is here.”

Rey silently agreed with him. “Do you think it’s the mirror? No”, she answered her own question. “If it was, I would have been sucked through when I touched it.”

“That only leaves the pool.”

They simultaneously turned towards the basin. The water was gurgling as if it was alive.

“I’ll do it”, Ben said and started to make his way to the pool’s edge, but Rey was faster. She blocked his path, still holding his lightsaber.

“No. I won’t lose you again. I’ll do it.”

“Rey”, he whispered, his gaze locking hers. “I’ve been there once already. Plus, you’ve brought me back. You can do it again.”

“And if I don’t?”, she whispered in a broken voice.

“Don’t do this”, he pleaded. “Please. Let me make my own choice. I couldn’t do that for so long, and if I did, the choices I made were the wrong ones. Let me do this one thing right, Rey.”

His voice was so gentle.

“If I can’t bring you back this time…”, she choked.

“You can.” He’d closed the distance between them, gently wiping the tears from her cheeks, which sent her pulse racing.

“I know you can, Rey. Just like Ariadne and her thread of light, remember? You can pull me back with the Bond.”

Rey wished she had his trust in her skills.

“I was only able to pull you back because you let me, Ben. Because you decided to take the thread. What if you go too far? We don’t even know if there is a ‘too far’. Or what if the Whills don’t let you go again? You told me they were the ones who let you go.”

“We won’t know it”, he admitted. “But there is no way I’d let you do this. I know you’re strong and you don’t need anyone to protect you, Rey. But I’m begging you to let me protect you this time.”

He pulled his hand away from her cheeks. She gave him a small nod and stepped aside to let him pass. He knelt down beside the basin, his hand hovering above the water’s shimmering surface.

“I think I need to get into the water completely”, he said.

“It’s ice-cold. You’ll freeze!”

“It’s the pathway into one of the worlds of death. I think freezing and drowning just fit into that whole door-to-death-thing.” He didn’t mean it as a jest; his voice was completely sober.

As he began to step into the basin, Rey couldn’t hold herself back any longer.

“Wait!”, she called out, her voice brittle.

She closed the distance between them, stood on her toes and pulled him into a kiss. He gasped in surprise and for a brief second Rey dreaded he wouldn’t kiss her back. But he did. Her head spun as he locked her in his embrace and kissed her. He tasted of salt and her own tears and her head spun with joy and dizziness. The kiss seemed to last forever, and Rey never wanted to let go. She tangled her hands in his hair and he sighed, pulling her even closer. So close that she could feel his own heart racing in his chest. The Force – or rather, the Bond connecting them, that beautiful thread of light – seemed to whirr with their emotions. She could feel his love for her humming through their connection.

As they finally parted, they were both breathless. Then, Ben gave her another radiant, dazzling smile.

“I should probably stop dying right after you kiss me”, he panted. His voice was shaky.

“So, you remember the kiss!” Rey gave him a bashful but delighted smile.

“I could never forget it. I wasn’t so sure if you meant it that way… which was a stupid thought, in hindsight”, he admitted.

“Don’t you dare die again, Ben Solo, do you understand me? If you die, I’ll follow right behind you and drag you back.” The tears had started flowing again. Ben’s eyes were brimming with tears, too.

“I’ll come back for you, sweetheart”, he whispered while gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I promise.”

With one last glance at her, he turned towards the burbling waters of the basin which almost sounded gleeful. As if it was alive.

Ben didn’t take off his clothes, he just waded into the water until he was standing in the centre of the pond, the water only at his waist. A few rays on daylight floated through the hole in the cave’s ceiling, casting his dark hair in a ghostly hue.

“It’s not deep”, he stated the obvious and Rey knew he was trying to calm her. It didn’t work.

His gaze fixed on hers, he took one last deep inhale, then let himself sink beneath the pool’s surface.

As soon as the last of his black strands had vanished, the water’s surface began to change. It became as calm as if it was made of glass, then small crystals of ice started to form at the pool’s edges, spreading out towards the centre. In only a few seconds, the basin had completely frozen over.

Rey started to scream.

***

He was back in the forest. This time, he was certain that it was the forest of his home on Chandrila – not the same forest, but its reflection.

The fog was there, too, closing in on him from all sides. It would have frightened him, had he been here for the first time, but he knew it just belonged to this world like the ferns belonged to the woods on Chandrila. It was part of it.

The glowing thread of light – the Force Bond, he knew now – appeared in front of him. But he wouldn’t take it yet.

“Whills?”, he called out and started to walk through the fog. He didn’t know in which direction he was going, but he felt it didn’t matter, anyway. This place held you captured until you crossed into whatever lay beyond or were pulled back. It was impossible to find the way out on your own. The glowing thread of light followed him, always hovering a few feet in front of him, radiating a soft warmth. He reached out his hands towards it, barely touching it, just to let Rey know he was still there at the other end.

“Whills? It’s Ben Solo. Again.” The fog had thickened, and Ben came to a halt. He didn’t want to walk right into a tree. No one answered. But he felt as if something was watching him again – or rather _sensing_ him. Did this place have a consciousness of its own? Or were the Whills the consciousness of the World between Worlds?

He knew now that this place looked different to everyone – Luke had told him, last time he was here. He wanted to call out for his mother and his uncle, then remembered what they had told him. Force Ghosts couldn’t stay in the World between Worlds for more than a few seconds.

Just as Ben thought he’d have to wander these woods forever to find the Whills, they seemed to have found him.

 _It’s not wise to come back_ , their thousand tiny voices whispered all around him. _This place is not for the living._

“I know. I’m…sorry.” He hesitated. “I did not want to come back, but I have some questions. I beg you to answer them, if you will allow it.”

 _You felt it_.

“I did”, he admitted. “Something evil has awakened in the Galaxy.”

 _It did come from this place_ , the Whills whispered. Their voices sounded like a hive of bees; humming and vibrating in his head.

“Plagueis.” It wasn’t a question.

 _Whatever he may be called in the world of the living_ , they confirmed. Ben had known it, but the validation sent a freezing fear through him.

“Did he leave this world already?”

 _He is preparing himself to leave in this very moment_.

“How is he doing it?”

 _We do not know_.

That was strange, he thought. He had taken to thinking of the Whills as some omniscient beings. Ben could feel the Whills’ fury about Plagueis’ ruse, and inevitably, unease was creeping through him; if the Whills didn’t want Plagueis to leave the World between Worlds… would they let him leave again?

They seemed to feel his growing disquiet.

 _His ways to leave are unnatural. Yours are true_.

“The Force Bond?”

 _A dyad in the Force, life itself connecting two souls that belong together_ , they confirmed. _You may call it fate_.

They were right. It had always felt like fate was bringing him and Rey together – from the first time he had seen her, in the forests of Takodana, he’d felt the pull towards her, like a peculiar gravity. He knew she had felt it too, when he had tried to interrogate her through the Force. Was that the moment the Bond had formed?

 _A Bond like yours does not form_ , the Whills answered his silent question. _You are born with it. It can never be broken. It will always connect you with her_.

Hearing this, a feeling of happiness flooded him. Fate itself had bound them together. It was beautiful. That pull to the light he had always felt tugging at him, even in his darkest hours, had always been her.

He gathered his thoughts, focusing again on the more pressing reasons he was here.

“So, that means Plagueis doesn’t have a thread of light that binds him to life, but he somehow managed to do it, anyway”, he summed up. “Has he ever been to this place before?”

 _Yes_.

So Plagueis had been Snoke. 

“So, you don’t know how he finds his way out of the World between Worlds, but as soon as he does, he inhabits another body?”

_Yes._

Something seemed to stir. A shadow. Ben could feel it creeping towards him, seeping through the white fog in tendrils of black smoke.

“How many doorways to this world do exist?”, he wanted to know.

 _Only two_.

His time was running out. The soft buzzing of the Whills rose until it became a loud whirring. Whatever was seeping towards him, it seemed to disturb them as well.

 _He’s coming for you_.

“Can you tell me how to stop him?”, he pressed on, frantically searching his surroundings for the golden glowing thread. It was right beside him.

“Please. We need to stop him.”

 _There is only one way. There mustn’t be anything left to chain him to the World of the Living. Then, he needs to cross over_.

“Cross over into death? The afterlife?”

 _The darkness beyond the World between Worlds. He needs to cross over. He’s coming for you_.

**What do we have here? Have you finally come to visit me, boy?**

Plagueis. He was here. His voice was sharp, like a shard of glass, his presence sending ripples of darkness through the Force.

The darkness had coiled around him like thick, black smoke from the fire, suffocating him. Blinding him. He couldn’t see the thread of light anymore.

He wanted to scream out for Rey, but he couldn’t breathe. He reached out his hand, feeling for the warmth of the Bond – and found it. He grabbed it with both hands, and a bright beam of golden light shot through the darkness around him. The black coils of smoke curled away from it as if they feared its power.

More veins of light were shooting through the smoke, which started to dissolve. No, not dissolve, he saw; it _fled_ from the light.

Ben gave the thread another tug, and the light enveloped him.

With a gasp, he opened his eyes – and swallowed a gush of freezing-cold water. His lungs felt as if they were on fire and it was dark again, only a few bursts of light floated above him. He raised his hands and met something cold and solid. Ice. The pool’s surface had frozen over, capturing him in his watery grave.

Before he could start to panic, there was a crash, and someone grabbed his arms, hoisting him up and out of the basin. He broke the surface and gasped for air, struggling to breathe.

“I told you! I told you not to die, Ben!”, Rey was screaming at him. He felt the wet stone beneath him as he rolled onto his hands, heaving up gushes of ice-cold saltwater. Rey was beside him in a heartbeat, wiping wet strands of hair out of his face. And finally, his lungs filled with air again. He felt her draping the woollen cape around his shoulders, then realized he was shaking. The water droplets in his hair were freezing again.

“I swear to you, Ben, if I have to drag your ass back from the dead _one more time_ , I’ll riot”, she told him.

“I’m sorry”, he wheezed as the dizziness in his head started to subside and his vision cleared again. He rolled onto his back, too weak to stand up. Rey was still kneeling beside him, soaked to the skin; her buns had come lose and her hair was a tangled wet mess. 

“What happened? Did the Whills want to keep you there? I could feel your terror through the Force, and there was something else – what was that?”, she blurted.

“He was there. Plagueis was there.”

Ben was still busy catching his breath. The burning feeling in his lungs started to subside at least.

Rey stared at him agape.

“That something you felt through the Bond, that was him. Rey, he found me in the World between Worlds. He knows that we’re trying to find a way to destroy him”, Ben continued to explain, not sure if she even listened – she just stared at him in horror.

He rose from the freezing stone floor of the cave. With a glance at her wet, trembling form, he raised his cloak in a silent question. She understood, and – still a little hesitant – nuzzled up against him. He drew the cloak a little tighter around them, trying to shield them from the cold.

“Rey, we need to get back to the ship. You’re freezing.” He started to steer her towards the cave’s entrance. They would have to climb the jagged stone walls to get out.

“ _Have_ we found a way to destroy him?”, she finally whispered with clattering teeth, fear casting a cloud over the glint in her hazel eyes. Ben couldn’t tell if she was shaking due to the cold or the prospect of Plagueis’ attack on him; he just pulled her into a soothing embrace. She was so small, and she looked so frail – opposing to how he’d never won a lightsaber-fight against her. Not once. 

“Yes. The Whills told me what to do – I’ll tell you later. We need to get back to the Falcon first and warm ourselves, okay?”

Now that he knew that Rey and Ben had found out a way to stop him, it was likely that Plagueis would try everything to eliminate them, Ben knew.

***

“Where have you been?”, Finn shouted and began to sprint towards Ben and Rey as soon as they’d made their way back to the Falcon. They were both soaked through and trembling beneath Ben’s black cloak they were sharing.

Finn stopped dead in his tracks, his gaze traveling over their dripping forms until he noticed their intertwined hands. His stared at them agape but didn’t comment on it.

“I’m sorry”, Rey said. “We should have told you where we were going. But I swear, you wouldn’t have believed it, anyway.”

Ben threw Finn a glance that he hoped would tell him _I’m not sorry, and I still don’t like you_. Finn reciprocated the glare.

Inside the Falcon, they were met by the others – Rose threw her arms around Rey and pulled her into a relieved hug.

“You can’t just vanish!”, she chided.

“Well, she shouldn’t. _He_ can vanish any time.”

“Poe!”

“By the holy stars, what _happened_?” Rose waved at Ben and Rey.

The two were still huddled together under Ben’s woollen cape, water dripping out of their hair and clothes, leaving small puddles on the Falcon’s floor. Chewie wouldn’t like that.

“We need to dry off, first”, Rey told Rose. “Ben found a way to stop Plagueis. Can you assemble everyone in the living quarters?”

Even with Plagueis’ return from the dead, and the lasting terror about Ben’s second trip to the World between Worlds, Rey felt happiness rushing through her, stronger than ever. Ben had kissed her. He’d called her sweetheart. He loved her. 

What the Force had showed her all those weeks ago, when her hand had touched Ben’s, had finally come true: he’d turned for her, and he was with her. She had found the love and happiness she’d longed for her whole life. Rey was ready to fight tooth and claw to defend it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so unbelievably sorry that it took me so long to update. I hope you're all well, especially during these times. May the Force be with You! <3

“I’ve been to the world of death again”, Ben told them as everyone had taken their seats and he and Rey had dried off as good as possible. He didn’t have any spare clothes, though. “Well, the World between Worlds. It’s not death, exactly, more...”

“Between death and life,” Rey completed his sentence, “rather like a bridge.” They were sitting beside each other, hands still intertwined, which earned them glances from the others, though nobody had commented on it, yet.

“Is that some kind of weird hobby of yours?”, Poe retorted.

“We don’t have time for sarcastic jests, Poe”, Rey scolded him. BB8 emitted an affirmative series of beeps.

Meanwhile, Finn had started pacing around the living quarters where they’d gathered, which only increased Rey’s growing distress. She felt a calming wave of emotions through the Force as Ben tried to soothe her a little.

“Wait, how come you could return, anyway?”, Poe wondered, earning him an agreeing howl from Chewie. Porgs had settled all over the Wookie – on his head, his shoulders, his lap – but he didn’t seem to mind.

“The Force connected us”, Ben answered, nodding towards Rey.

Finn and Poe gasped.

“Connected? As in… _connected_?”

“We can see each other through the Force, talk to each other…” _Touch each other_ , Rey added in her mind. They didn’t need to know that.

“Wow. Just when you think it couldn’t get more awkward…”

Finn turned and threw Rose a dubious glance. “Wait, why are you not shocked and surprised?”

“I knew”, she simply answered with a shrug.

“You told Rose but not me?”, Finn turned to Rey. “I thought _I’m_ your best friend.”

“You weren’t exactly happy that Ben had joined us”, Rey reminded him. “You made sure to show your discontent every time you had the chance to, Finn.”

“Yes. But for how long have you kept this secret?” He was obviously hurt, but Rey didn’t feel any guilt. She just felt relieved about finally not having to keep any more secrets from her friends.

“She knew how you’d react”, Rose reprimanded, aiding Rey. “And you’re just proving Rey’s point.”

Finn didn’t seem to hear; he just increased his pacing.

“Stop the drama, she’s her own person. If you’re her best friend, you shut up and accept her decisions”, Ben snapped at Finn who now stopped pacing and whipped around to face him.

 _Stop it, Ben_ , Rey hissed through the Force.

 _He started it_.

Everybody started shouting at once.

Threepio seemed to have decided to finally speak up, and he chimed in, “If I may interject –“

“YOU MAY NOT”, Ben and Poe shouted in perfect sync, then stared at each other in horror, realizing they’d found a common ground in being annoyed by the constantly blabbering droid.

“WAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGHH!”, Chewie roared. The Wookie had risen from his seat, startled porgs fluttering all around him, cooing and screeching, while the Wookie just howled on. He looked like the patron saint of weird birds.

Everybody went quiet.

Chewie pointed a hairy paw at Finn and growled something, then recollected himself and sat down again. The porgs settled back onto him. Silence reigned the Falcon’s interior.

Finally, Ben spoke up again.

“Great. Now that it’s settled: would you listen to what Rey an I have to tell you?”

He could barely restrain the anger in his voice, but Rey felt it searing through their connection now.

“Go on, then”, Poe muttered. “And Finn, sit down, _please_.”

Finn complied and positioned himself as far away from Ben as possible. Rey sighed. It didn’t seem like they would ever become friends.

“Plagueis is back, _again_. It’s not the first time he returned”, Rey started. “Darth Plagueis was Snoke.”

“WHAT?!”

Everyone gasped in horror, Chewie howled and BB8 began to beep frantically.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you.” Ben had to raise his voice to be heard over all the murmuring.

“How did he do it?”, Rose wanted to know.

Ben shook his head. “The Whills didn’t tell me. But they confirmed our suspicions that Plagueis was Snoke – or Snoke was Plagueis, rather – and he attacked me in the World between Worlds.”

Rey’s grip tightened a little as he mentioned the attack and Ben replied with a reassuring squeeze. Her hand was so small in his.

“The Whills told me we could stop him by cutting any links Plagueis has to the World of the Living, and then force him to cross over into what they called the ‘World of darkness beyond’. Death.”

“Very poetic”, Poe quipped. “And we all just agree to trust those mysterious little voices in his head?”

Rey was afraid Ben would hit the pilot any second now. But Ben just threw Poe an exasperated glance and seemed to decide that ignoring him was the best way to go in handling Poe’s commentaries.

“What did the Whills mean with links?”

“We’ll find out as we go, I guess”, Ben replied.

Chewie let out a snickering howl – _just like Han_.

“Ben, did the Whills tell you where Plagueis is? I mean, where he intends to come back?”, Rey asked.

“No, but I think I know, anyway. They told me that there are only two doorways to the World between Worlds, and Plagueis is contained in that place, so long as he doesn’t have a body to inhabit. He’s not here on Ahch-To, which means that he’s planning on using the other doorway.”

Rey frowned; she understood what Ben wanted to tell them. “If the World between Worlds is the bridge between death and life, and one of its entryways is here on Ahch-To, the place of the first Jedi, the symbol of light…” she trailed off, frowned, and ventured, “The bridge could connect the Dark Side and the Light Side of the Force, as well. Therefore, if Ahch-To symbolizes the Light Side, and Plagueis enters the bridge via the Dark Side, the second entrance – Plagueis’ entrance and whatever anchors him to the Living World – has to be in a place where the Sith and the Dark Side have their origin”, she concluded and was met with confused glances from her friends.

“Korriban”, Ben said. “Korriban is the planet of the first Sith and the dark Jedi – one could say the dark Jedi became the Sith; it was destroyed in wars thousands of years ago. All the ancient Sith Lords are buried there. That place is a graveyard.”

“But Korriban is a haunted place, roamed by the evil spirits of the Sith Lords!”, Threepio chimed in with a worried tone, “The planet belongs to the dead. There are tales of people who went there and never came back. It is said that the evil voices of this place haunt you and drive you into insanity in a matter of minutes! You can’t go there, Master Ben and Miss Rey!”

“I think if you hear voices”, Poe interjected drily, “you already are insane – not the other way around.”

“Anyway, if the World between Worlds really is a bridge between the two places of light and darkness, too, couldn’t you just cross it to visit Korriban?”, Finn wondered. He was so engrossed that it seemed he’d completely forgotten that he was supposed to be angry.

“No”, Ben replied. “You can’t navigate in the World between Worlds. It’s impossible. There is fog everywhere, and just… it’s not like wandering around and eventually finding the way. That place doesn’t want you to find your way. All you can do if you’re in there is cross over into the darkness. I would’ve never been able to come back to the World of the Living if Rey hadn’t led the way with our Bond.”

“Oh, great. A bridge you can’t cross. The Force sure does like its drama.”

This time, even Ben had to smirk at Poe’s comment.

“How do we even find Korriban?”, Rey asked. “I’ve never heard of this place. I mean, we won’t find it on a map, will we?”

Ben glanced at her, a little amused. “Actually, we will. It’s in the Outer Rim, just around the corner of the Yavin-System.”

“Great”, Rey answered. “Now I just need a lightsaber. The Skywalker family-saber is still broken –“

 _Go on, tell them how you broke my family heirloom_ , Ben’s amused voice echoed through the Bond, interrupting her.

“Anyway, I need a weapon if we want to face Plagueis.”

“I know how to repair it”, Ben told her.

“You do? The kyber crystal is broken.”

“This one is, too”, told her and raised his old saber which he still carried with him. “It broke before the saber was built, so I rebuilt it into a crossguards-saber to stabilize the crystal’s heat with the lateral vents.”

 _I’ll throw it into the deepest pit on some water-planet as soon as I have another weapon_ , Ben promised through the connection.

Rey was glad to hear it. It was the last remnant of Kylo Ren, and she was glad he was ready to dispose of it as soon as possible.

“Luke’s saber is still in my compartment on Commenor.”

“But surely we’re going back to Commenor? I did not think we’d all go to Korriban”, Threepio objected slightly panicked.

“We don’t”, Rey reassured him. Finn, Rose, Chewie and Poe gave her an alarmed look.

“You want to go alone?”

“We’re your friends, we won’t stay behind. We’ll fight by your side!”

Rey shook her head. “No. I appreciate your wish to help, but Ben and I will go alone.”

“It’s not a safe place, and even more dangerous if you’re not a Force-user”, Ben agreed.

***

**[In the Yavin-System]**

Hux was standing on the control bridge, his whole stance now proud and tall. He had used the surveillance footage to dethrone Ren once and for all and had declared himself Supreme Leader before any of the other remaining Generals could object. Most of those spineless men and women were glad that Ren was gone, and Bright was dead, anyway.

He had ordered the fleet – the whole fleet, this time, and more important, _his_ fleet – to ready for an attack. Some First Order loyalists on Commenor had sighted the Falcon again in the skies above the planet and had immediately alerted the new Supreme Leader.

Hux saw it as a sign – the Falcon wouldn’t pass Commenor twice in a row coincidentally. It was the confirmation for what he’d suspected: the new Resistance hideout was somewhere on Commenor. With a little research, he had concluded they’d occupied the old underground cave system, the one that had once been base of the old Resistance before.

They would be ready to attack in only a few minutes, and then he’d finally eradicate the rest of the rebel scum. The last glimmer of hope would be extinguished, and the whole Galaxy would cower before their new Supreme Leader Hux.

He had seen the surveillance of Ren and the scavenger girl as they’d fled his soldiers. The girl would be dead by now, judging from the wound in her chest and the amounts of blood that had tainted the otherwise polished floor in front of the escape pods, but Ren had managed to escape.

However, a grin spread over Hux’ features. He’d taken the girl. Wherever Ren was hiding, Hux was sure he was devastated by the scavenger’s death. From what Hux could tell, Ren had obviously not only plotted to kill Snoke together with her but had also fallen in love with the filthy desert rat. Could he sink any lower? It would be easy now to finish him off, as well.

“Start the attack on Commenor. Take down the underground caves, block every single entrance. Kill every single one of them. We’ll finish it, today”, he gave the order.


End file.
